LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 

3 X4^0 

Chap.t Copyrigkt No. 



UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



THE TEANSFIGURING 

OF 

THE CROSS. 



THE TRANSFIGURING 

OF 

THE CROSS; 



C{)e Cnal antr Cnump]^ of t\)t 
g)on of iWan. 



BY y 

THEOPHILUS P. SAWIN, D.D. 

MINISTER OF THE FIRST CHURCH OF TROY, 



TROY, N.Y.: 

BREWSTER AND PACKARD, 

Booksellers and Publishers. \ 

1896. 



Copyright, 1896, 
By Brewster and Packard. 



The Library 
of conouess 



Sanibcrsitg Press: 
John Wilson and Son, Cambridge, U. S. A. 



TO THE MEMBERS 

OF 

Ei)z iFirst ^Presbyterian Congregation of ^Trog, 

WHOSE LOYE AND SYMPATHY FOR TEN YEAES PAST HAS BEEN 
UNFAILING AND CONSTANT, AND HAS THUS MADE 
MY MINISTRY AMONG THEM AN EVER 
INCREASING JOY, 

THIS VOLUME IS AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED. 



PREFACE. 



'HIS volume contains a selection from a 



series of sermons on the Fourth Gospel. 
They deal with the events recorded in the eigh- 
teenth and nineteenth chapters of that Gospel, 
and are intended to present the facts with such 
explanation as belongs mainly to the time of 
their action. Subjective influences may have in 
part ruled me, but I have endeavored to be true 
to the environment of the history. The sermons 
therefore illustrate my idea of expository preach- 
ing, though they are far from my ideal. 

In their preparation I acknowledge the general 
help I have received from many sources, but in 
particular the help that has come from the fine 
attention and kind appreciation of my people. 




viii 



PREFACE. 



For their sake I would have revised them, and 
thus avoided some repetition of thought ; but I 
have yielded to the request to ^' give them as 
I gave them." 

T. P. S. 

Ju^^E 17, 189&. 





CONTENTS. 








Page 


I. 


When Hope was Darkest . 


13 


II. 


Jesus Betrayed and Arrested . 


. 39 


TTT 
III. 


The Testing of Simon Peter 


bo 


IV. 


Pilate's Lack of Conviction 


. 87 


Y. 


The Great Question .... 


. Ill 


VI. 


Guilt Divinely Measured . . . 


. 135 


VII. 


The Cross in Development . . 


. 157 


VIII. 


The Cross in Eealization . . . 


. 189 


IX. 


The Cross in Transfiguration . 


. 215 



I. 

WHEN HOPE WAS DARKEST. 



He shall see of the travail of his soul aud be satisfied. — 
Isaiah liii. 11. 

As sorrowful yet always rejoicing. — 2 Cor. vi. 10. 

Wherefore did the Lord so often break of£ that prayer 
of his which was of such mighty consequence ? In my 
opinion it was to teach us that our prayers are most per- 
fect when intermixed with an anxious concern for the 
welfare of our neighbors. — Isid., Clarius. 

And who can say that it is not a glorious thing that a 
thought so divine as that of Christ, the Man of sorrows 
and the stricken lamb of God, should altogether penetrate 
the spirit of so many centuries, and be borne to the inmost 
heart of the poorest peasant, and everywhere turn the 
moans of anxiety and anguish into a plaint of heavenly 
music? — Martineau, in Hours of Thought. 



I. 



WHEN HOPE WAS DARKEST. 

When Jesus had spoken these ivords he went forth 
with his disciples over the brook Kidroii ivhere 
was a garden into which he entered and his dis- 
ciples. — John xviii. 1 . 

THE Fourth Gospel gives no account of the 
agony of our Lord in the Garden of Geth- 
semane. It simply mentions the place as the 
scene of the betrayal and arrest. Various reasons 
have been suggested for this omission. Some 
tell us that the author of these memorabilia only 
intended to supplement the record of the other 
three gospels ; but this reason is unsatisfactory, 
because many things are repeated in this gospel 
which are reported in the others. The Fourth 
Gospel, although written much later than the 
others, is neither a supplement nor an appendix, 
but is an independent composition, making omis- 
sions, and containing repetitions and additions, 
in accordance with the plan of its construction. 

Again, some make bold to affirm that the 
author did not know of this incident, but the in- 



14 THE TRANSFIGURING OF THE CROSS. 

timate knowledge which he displays of the whole 
life and thought of Jesus forbids such an assump- 
tion. Others account for the omission on the 
ground that inasmuch as it is the purpose of this 
gospel to set forth the divinity of our Lord, such 
a scene of sorrow, suffering, and shrinking fear 
as is portrayed by the other gospel historians 
would be inconsistent with this purpose ; but the 
answer to this is, that these memorabilia are 
quite as explicit in their recognition of the full 
and true humanity of our Lord as the other 
records. It is enough on this point to refer to 
the silent assent of J esus himself to the question 
of the Jews, " Is not this Jesus the son of Joseph, 
whose father and mother we know ? " and to his 
own affirmation, " Ye both know me, and ye 
know whence I am." We might also add that 
this gospel gives us a very definite anticipation 
of the sufferings in the garden in connection 
with the visit of certain Greeks to the temple. 
With some prevision of the coming disaster to 
himself, Jesus says, "Now is my soul troubled." 
The expression is intensive, and indicates that he 
was stirred to the very depths of his being by the 
circumstances which then pointed to his death. 
The man who reported this saying would cer- 
tainly find no logical difficulty in giving an 
accoimt of the suffering in Gethsemane if he 



WHEN HOPE WAS DARKEST. 



15 



wished to do so. We are therefore left in the 
dark, I think, as to the reason of the omission, 
unless we may suppose that the author was 
governed by sentimental considerations. These 
surely may have great weight, for no one of a 
sensitive nature can even read the story of the 
agony in the garden without feeling that it is 
almost too sacred for analysis, or even description. 
That the beloved disciple should draw a veil 
over it, from personal considerations, is not alto- 
gether strange. The reason then for the omis- 
sion was in his heart and not in his mind. He 
simply could not speak of it. It forms, however, 
an essential part of the biography of Jesus, and 
if only we look at it with a reverent sympathy, 
we may derive some spiritual benefit from its 
consideration. I shall therefore endeavor to pre- 
sent this incident of the suffering of our Lord in 
Gethsemane in accordance with the light shed 
upon it by the facts so far as we know them in 
the life of the historic Jesus. In this examina- 
tion the Fourth Gospel is as essential as the 
others, for whatever may have been the reason 
for the omission of the incident, we have here its 
environment, and its psychological setting. Its 
authenticity is thus emphasized. 

Following then the order in the record before 
us, we find Jesus going forthwith his disciples to 



16 THE TRANSFIGURING OF THE CROSS. 



the garden situated on the slope of Mount Olivet, 
after he had uttered a most significant prayer 
in his own behalf and theirs. In this prayer 
he had risen to a state of spiritual exaltation. 
The talk about the table had gradually led up 
to it, but in the subsequent prayer there is an 
expansion of thought and an uplifting of the 
soul beyond any previous experience. In this 
prayer Jesus becomes conscious of his own glori- 
fication. He sees all his past life and all its 
future influence in the perfect tense. " I have 
finished," he says, " the work thou gavest me to 
do." This sense of the completeness of his labor 
is not marred by any thought of failure. The 
immediate and present ineffectiveness of his life 
is hidden in the light of its permanent and eter- 
nal results. Like a man in a dream he surmounts 
impossible obstacles with ease and celerity. In 
this ecstatic state all fear disappears. The 
Father is near him, and is one with him, as he is 
one with the Father. Then he rises into a still 
higher mood, and makes his union with the 
Father the standard of the measure of the union 
of the disciples with himself and with his Father. 
Listen to the extraordinary words : " I in them, 
and thou in me, that they may be made perfect 
in one." But this union is no merely theoretical 
affair. It has a practical end and aim. It com- 



TVHEX HOPE WAS DARKEST. 17 



prebends participation in this glory with equal 
shares, first as beholding it, and second as 
receiving it. "Father, I will that they also 
whom thou hast given me, be with me where I 
am, that they may behold my glory." We can 
understand this. We find no difficulty in believ- 
ing that the time may come when our eyes shall 
behold the glory of the Lord, for by this we 
mean the triumph of righteousness in the world, 
and the acknowledgment of the reign of the king- 
dom of heaven when mercy and truth shall meet 
together and righteousness and peace shall kiss 
each other. But when Jesus goes on to say, 
"And the glory which thou hast given me, I 
have given them, that they may be one as we 
are one," Ave stop short, for we think that he 
cannot quite mean it. So we say, " This cannot 
be ; it takes Jesus out of his unique position as 
the Son of God, and opens to all his disciples 
ultimate equality of sonship." Then we try to 
draw a line between what we call his communi- 
cable glory and that which is incommunicable. 
We say that it is possible perhaps for us to re- 
ceive that which was given to him, but not that 
which is his inherently ; or that which is morally 
his may be ours, but not that which is his essen- 
tially. But Jesus evidently did not think of 

such distinctions. The explanation of his lan- 
2 



18 THE TRANSFIGURING OF THE CROSS. 



guage is to be found in his emotions, and not in 
his intellect. Only a soul in the highest condi- 
tion of rapture could utter such expressions as 
these. They do not belong to ordinary speech. 
We may believe that in this hour of prayer his 
joy was literally full. He saw himself as it were 
in the day of his coronation. All his crown 
rights were conceded, and his spiritual vision 
took in the establishment of his kingdom from 
the sea to the uttermost parts of the earth. This 
exaltation of spirit continues to the end of the 
prayer, and causes him to conclude with an un- 
qualified assurance in the eternity of the divine 
love. It is impossible for us to measure the 
depth of inspiration or the height of aspiration 
displayed by this prayer. We feel in reading 
it like those who have looked upon the stupen- 
dous and the sublime in nature, and who realize 
how imperfect any description of the grandeur 
must be. The language here defies analysis, 
and cannot be put into the fetters of logic. It 
is the language of feeling, the utterance of a 
soul that is filled with the thrill of a divine 
harmony, and the joy of a perfect completeness in 
a righteous life. But the prayer ended, Jesus 
goes forth with his disciples. They are now 
in the streets of the city. The midnight hour 
approaches, and the people are leaving the temple 



WHEN HOPE WAS DARKEST. 



19 



in tkrongs ere the gates are closed. The sight 
of the crowd, and the noisy confusion attendant 
upon it, recalls the occasion of the gathering, and 
brings to his mind the knowledge of that peril 
which had been obliterated in the enthusiasm of 
his prayer. Now for the first time a wave of 
troubled agitation sweeps oyer him. The dis- 
ciples, keenly on the watch, discern the change, 
and instinctively gather closer about him; but 
in response to this action he tells them that 
they ,will "all be offended in him this night," 
for it is written, " I will smite the shepherd, and 
the sheep will be scattered." To this Peter 
replies, " Though all should be offended, yet will 
not I." But Jesus, knowing well the character of 
the impetuous apostle, answers, " Simon, Simon, 
Satan hath desired you that he may sift you as 
wheat, but I have prayed for thee, that thou fail 
not ; and when thou art converted strengthen thy 
brethren." 

But Peter still presses his claim of self-sacrifice, 
and replies with redoubled earnestness, " Lord, I 
am ready to go with thee, both into prison, and 
unto death." It is thus that Peter makes plain 
the kind of peril which he supposes Jesus fears, 
and which he is willing to share. But it is one 
thing to make a boast when danger is somewhat 
distant, and quite another to fulfil it when it is 



20 THE TRANSFIGURING OF THE CROSS. 



at hand. So as Peter has made specific the dan- 
ger he will bravely face, Jesus is explicit in tell- 
ing him the very way he will prove faithless. 
The prediction is all the more emphatic, because 
he had made the same a few hours before. " I 
say to thee, Peter, the cock shall not crow this 
day before thou hast denied that thou knowest 
me." Turning now to all the disciples, and re- 
verting to the thought of their being scattered, 
he endeavors to prepare them for this trial. So 
he says to them, When I sent you without 
purse, or scrip, or sandals, lacked ye any- 
thing?" They answered, "Nothing I" "But 
now," he continues, "he that hath a purse, let 
him take it, and likewise his scrip, and he that 
hath no sword, let him sell his garment and buy 
one." 

This seems contradictory to previous exhorta- 
tions to non-resistance, and to putting away all 
anxiety regarding the future; but Jesus un- 
doubtedly refers here to the necessity of prepar- 
ing for S23iritual defence against evil aggression. 
It is as if he had said, " Be ready for any emer- 
gency which may arise. Your faith and courage 
will be sorely tried, and hence I warn you not to 
be caught unprepared. There may come a time 
when the policy of non-resistance will be detri- 
mental to my kingdom ; then you must fight. I 



WHEN HOPE WAS DARKEST. 21 



lay down no rule wliicli must be blindly followed, 
but I give you principles of action for guidance." 
The disciples, however, did not so understand 
him. They evidently thought that he was coun- 
selling them to arm themselves at this time with 
material weapons, and hence they replied, " Lord, 
here are two swords." Jesus, in despair of their 
right conception of his words, replies with a 
mingling of pity and sarcasm, It is enough ! " 
Certainly, of that kind of sword, and with such 
men to handle it, two were enough, and more 
than enough. 

They now entered the garden. This was prob- 
ably an enclosed place on the side or near the 
foot of the Mount of Olives, occupied by trees 
whose dense shade hid them from the sight of 
passers by. We are told that it was an accus- 
tomed retreat of Jesus and his disciples, and 
therefore a place well known to Judas, who was 
now absent, consummating his plans for the be- 
trayal. As Jesus entered the familiar spot, the 
agitation which had gradually taken hold upon 
him during his walk thither now overwhelmed 
him, and he passed at once from his high state 
of exaltation to the very depths of humiliation 
and passionate sorrow. There are some who do 
not regard this as credible, and hence the}^ deny 
the truth of the record which reports it; but I 



22 THE TRANSFIGURING OF THE CROSS. 

think we need go no further than our own ex- 
perience for a verification of its reality. 

It is possible for us to talk calmly and ration- 
ally of a great sorrow which has broken our 
hearts; we can even rise to heights of resigna- 
tion from the depth of submission, and viewing 
by faith the end of our discipline, we can re- 
joice with joy unspeakable ; but we can do this 
only when, in some way, our grief is for the 
time removed. When an angel of sympathy 
strengthens us, we are quiet, because our atten- 
tion is drawn away from ourselves, or because 
we are put into another environment. But 
while we are face to face with the outward, 
physical fact of our grief; when we realize for 
the first time that it is the last time ; when we 
pass out of the door, and it is shut and locked 
behind us ; when an absolute change takes place, 
and the routine in which we have lived and 
moved with satisfaction of soul is broken, and 
we know that it can never again be resumed, — 
then human nature will assert itself, and we fling 
away all restraint, and suffer the passion of our 
grief tc^ swell in torrents, and spend itself freely, 
lest by impeding it we perish utterly. But even 
then we may pass suddenly into a quiet state, 
just as a mountain stream wildly rushing down 
over rocks falls into a pool as calm and clear 



WHEN HOPE WAS DARKEST. 23 



as the unclouded sky which it reflects. The ex- 
perience of sudden extremes of joy and woe is 
not uncommon in this human life of ours. The 
mountain and the valley, and not the plain, tell 
the story of the most of us. 

I venture to say then that the sudden fall of 
the spiritual temperature of Jesus is no mystery, 
neither is it illogical, as some would have us be- 
lieve who would fain throw doubt on the authen- 
ticity of the narrative. It is fairly though not 
wholly explained by a change of environment. 
When he entered that garden he knew it was for 
the last time. If you ask why he went there, 
knowing that it was the place where he would be 
betrayed, our only answer is that while Jesus 
never sought, he never avoided danger. He had 
but one way in which to go, and that was the 
way of duty, the whither of his Father's will. 
But now this old familiar place, made sacred by 
the gathering of friends, was about to be dese- 
crated by a most infamous betrayal. An enemy 
was even now seeking the trysting-place of love. 
The thought of that betrayal, and its conse- 
quences to himself and to his friends, is more 
than he can endure. He feels that he must be 
alone, yet not wholly alone. With hurried 
speech, as one speaks whose voice is paralyzed by 
excess of inward feeling, he bids the disciples sit 



24 THE TRANSFIGURING OF THE CROSS. 



down and wait for liim, while he takes the three 
with whom he is the most intimate, and retreats 
to another part of the garden. Then he leaves 
these three, and bidding them watch, goes away 
about a stone's throw. The Paschal moon, now 
at its zenith, shining through the dense foliage, 
casts its scattered light upon him, and enables 
these three to witness in part the awful struggle 
and terrible agony which possesses him. They 
hear a single sentence of the supplication which 
bursts from his agonized soul. If it be possible, 
let this cup pass from me," and again, " Abba, 
Father, all things are possible unto thee; take 
away this cup from me ; nevertheless, not what I 
will, but as thou wilt." So much these disciples 
saw and heard ; but not more, for their eyes were 
heavy with sleep, and their minds dull by reason 
of the long continued stress of attention de- 
manded of them since their early assembling. 
And now a strange thing happens, and yet it is 
not altogether inexplicable. In the midst of his 
prayer, and while as yet no alleviation of his 
terrible suffering has been vouchsafed to him, 
he goes back to these three disciples. Instead 
of continuing his supplication and having it all 
out with God at once, he returns to these friends, 
as if he could no longer endure the strain of 
distress alone. I think there is nothing more 



WHEN HOPE WAS DARKEST. 



25 



pathetic in all the life of our Lord than this turn- 
ing again and again to these men, seeking to find 
in human friendship that which for the time he 
could not get from the divine communion. I say 
this with some hesitation, and yet there are ex- 
periences of our own which testify to its truth. 
There have been times, at least with some of us, 
when we yearned for a more visible and sub- 
stantial manifestation of protection and comfort 
than could be gained in a purely spiritual com- 
munion. The everlasting arms seem to be the 
most everlasting when they are veritable arms of 
flesh. The living voice, the actual hand-grasp, 
the tender touch, the loving kiss, are things for 
which there is no substitute in solitary strife and 
anguish of soul. This grows out of the sociologi- 
cal fact that humanity is the unit of a union. 
This union is not only spiritual but federal. As 
members of one another we must come into 
touch with each other. Like must seek like. 
Revelation must be from the greater to the less 
in terms of the less. There is a fine illustration 
of this in the words which Browning puts into 
the mouth of David, in his poem on Saul : — 

" O Saul, it shall be 
A Face like my face that receives thee ; a man like to me 
Thou shalt love and be loved by forever ; a Hand like to 
this hand, 

Shall throw open the gates of new life to thee ! " 



26 THE TRANSFIGURING OF THE CROSS. 

Admitting all the mystery involved here, ad- 
mitting too the mystical nature of the idea, I 
nevertheless think that Jesus was eternally true 
to the highest instincts of his spiritual life, when 
he retreated from his solitary conflict and suf- 
fering, and hastened to the side of the men whom 
he had taken Avith him as watchers and protec- 
tors during his terrible trial. You may say that 
he leaned upon what proved to be a broken reed ; 
but it was better than none, and this much com- 
fort he gained from it, that he saw the willing- 
ness of the spirit beneath the weakness of the 
flesh. The fact that he repeatedly sought this 
human aid shows that he did not regard the sleep 
of the disciples as indifference or disloyalty, but 
rather as an involuntary weakness. I find no 
reproach even for their conduct, unless there 
may be a little in the emphasis placed on the 
pronouns in the question addressed to Peter. 

Simon, sleepest tJioit ? couldst not tJiou watch 
one hour ? " To Peter this question might have 
reminded him of his boast ; and yet I doubt not 
our Lord excused him as well as the others, for 
he knew the inner heart of Peter, and his real 
loyalty in spite of his superficial excitability. 
To him as to the others he said on coming to 
them the third time, " Sleep on now and take 
your rest ; it is enough ; the hour of betrayal is 



WHEN HOPE WAS DARKEST. 



27 



come." That is, " You liave done all you can do. 
The last hope is fled ; the way of the cross is 
inevitable. The Father's will, not mine, must 
be done." 

Some deep questions now present themselves 
for solution. What was the cause of this 
agony? Why was it not borne with heroic 
fortitude ? If Jesus were destined to diink the 
bitter cup, why did he pray that it might be 
taken away? 

We must look for the answer to the first ques- 
tion in the facts of the life of Jesus, and not in 
subsequent theological assumptions. The answer 
which medisevalism makes, and which is adopted 
and emphasized in the latest cloisters of scholas- 
ticism, may be summed up in words that are quite 
fresh from the press. " Identifying himself with 
sin, he must feel its very farthest consequence, — 
the awful solitude, and the unutterable anguish, 
of a soul now bereft of hope, and forsaken of 
God. In the heathen fable, Orpheus goes down, 
lyre in hand, to the Plutonic realm, to bring back 
again to life and love the lost E my dice ; but 
Jesus, in his vicarious sufferings, goes down to 
hell itself, that he may win back from their sins, 
and bear in triumph to the upper heavens, a lost 
humanity." ^ The assumption on which such 

1 Exp. Bible, Luke, p. 371, ff . 



28 THE TRANSFIGURING OF THE CROSS. 



a theory as this is based is contrary to the whole 
tenor, and opposed to every fact in. the life of 
OLir Lord. Did he identify himself with sin? 
Never ! With sinners he indeed identified him- 
self, but not with sin. He was the sinless one. 
How then could he feel the consequence of that 
which had no antecedent in him ? Was his soul 
bereft of hope ? Then he was utterly hopeless ; 
and if that happened even once then what confi- 
dence could men have in his invitation : " Come 
unto me all ye that labor and are heavy laden, 
and I will give you rest " ? Did he feel himself 
forsaken of God ? Then faith died within him, 
and his word, " Let not your hearts be troubled ; 
ye believe in God, believe also in me," is but the 
idle song of an empty day. The further expres- 
sion in this theory that " J esus went down into hell 
itself," if it involves the least idea of punitive 
suffering, — and the intensive pronoun "zYse//" 
seems to imply this, — is false to the righteousness 
of God, and contrary to universally acknowl- 
edged ethical principles. Punishment must be 
subsequent to sin, and nothing but sin can be 
its antecedent. If it be true that Jesus lost his 
faith in God, then he was a sinner as we are ; but 
in that case what becomes of his conscious un- 
broken filial life ? We admit that he " was num- 
bered with the transgressors," but he was not one 



WHEN HOPE WAS DARKEST. 29 



of tliem. " He was wounded on account of our 
transgressions," and " bruised for our iniquities : " 
but he was not punished for these things, nor 
judged unrighteous because of our crimes. Any 
theory that makes him bear substitutionary 
penalties either makes him a sinner, or makes 
God unjust; and although it may be said that 
God's justice is not infringed because he bore 
these sufferings voluntarily, yet it must be evi- 
dent to every one that even a willing submission 
to injustice cannot make injustice right. We 
must seek then for another answer to the ques- 
tion, Why he suffered. Without going into this 
question exhaustively, I think we may find a 
true and deep answer in the fact of his realizing 
that the ties which bound him to his earthly 
work must be broken. Tliis involves his relation 
both to friends and enemies, and introduces two 
elements of bitterness into the cup he was called 
to drink. First, he must leave his disciples 
before his perfect work was done wdth them. 
They were still objects of anxious solicitude, for 
they were far from understanding him or his 
mission. What might he not do with them 
if he could have only a few years longer in 
which to instruct them ! How many things he 
had to say which they could not now bear, and 
how many which they could bear, if only he 



30 THE TRANSFIGURING OF THE CROSS. 



could say them ! The second element of bitter- 
ness was the attitude of his fellow countrymen 
toward him. Worse than a serpent's tooth is 
the sin of ingratitude, and of this sin the Jews 
were guilty. They hated him without a cause. 
Here is reason for anguish. He loved them, and 
had made his life a sacrifice for them, and they 
despised that love, and mocked at all his efforts 
to do them good. There is no pain so great as 
that which love feels when it is met by scorn, 
and still continues to be love. If we realize this, 
there will be no need of * constructing a theory 
of the sufferings of Jesus in Gethsemane. Think 
of him as entering that familiar spot, and look- 
ing upon it for the last time ; think of him as 
he reflects upon the weakness of the disciples, 
and their need of him, which need can no longer 
be satisfied ; think of him as the consciousness 
of a consummate ingratitude on the part of his 
own people breaks in upon his soul, and as he 
realizes their unwillingness to be saved by him, 
though they are upon the verge of an awful 
destruction; think of him in his yearning, en- 
thusiastic, passionate desire to bring peace to 
the troubled, hope to the despairing, sight to 
the blind, and life to the dead, and with this 
desire recall the consciousness of his ability to 
save mito the uttermost all them that come to 



WHEN HOPE WAS DARKEST. 31 



him, — and then beside these thoughts place the 
cutting off of all these plans, and do you wonder 
that he prayed with agony of spirit that the 
cup might pass from him ? If a gardener once 
said to the lord of the garden when he com- 
manded him to cut down a fruitless tree, Suf- 
fer it one year longer that I may dig about it," 
is there not reason enough that Jesus should ask 
for more time ; and in the denial of that request 
is there not cause for anguish of soul, and sorrow 
like unto no other man's sorrow ? What need 
is there of seeking for other reasons, and es- 
pecially for reasons of a speculative nature, when 
these are so patent to our own experience ? But 
why did not Jesus meet this suffering with 
heroic fortitude ? Why did he not talk calmly 
about it, as Socrates did about his death, or as' 
hundreds of martyrs have done ? It is sufficient 
in answer to this to say that mental and spiritual 
suffering is not subject to the same law that 
physical suffering is. When it came to the 
crucifixion, Jesus met it with as much fortitude 
as Socrates did in taking the hemlock cup, 
although it was much more painful. In the 
garden his agony is proof of his agony. To 
have been calm there, would have shown in- 
sensibility. Sympathy and love are deep in 
proportion to their sensitiveness. Jesus suffered 



32 THE TRANSFIGURING OF THE CROSS. 



because he could suffer, because he was touched 
with the feehng of our infirmities, and tried in 
all points to which humanity is susceptible. 

The question why he prayed that the bitter 
cup might be taken away since he knew that he 
was destined to drink it, is more difficult than 
the others, but is not without a rational an- 
swer. If Jesus really faltered; if he lost sight 
for one moment of the goal towards which he 
was pressing ; if he put his own will against 
the will of the Father, and prayed that he might 
be spared the suffering on account of the weak- 
ness of the flesh ; if he retracted his vows of 
resignation and renunciation ; if in any way he 
weakened in regard to the one purpose of his 
life, — then we shall have to admit that he failed 
• in the hour of trial ; and that admission is fatal 
to his claims as a Saviour and Redeemer. But 
I think that the true state of the case is that all 
this was presented to him as a possibility. Two 
ways were actually open to him; and the way 
of escape from present and future suffering was 
the wider and the easier and the more attractive. 
For a moment then, in the extremity of his fear 
and his need, he prayed that the cup might pass ; 
and yet there was no thought of refusing it. The 
prayer was not occasioned by feeling that the 
wrath of God was upon him, but the very oppo- 



WHEN HOPE WAS DARKEST 33 



site. So conscious was lie of the divine love, 
so certain that Gocl was his Father, so sure of 
the infinite wisdom, that he had confidence to 
reason with God, and even appeal to him, to 
avert the coming blow, if it were in accordance, 
or could be made to be in accordance, with the 
divine plan. The plan itself he chd not ques- 
tion, whatever it might be. In one word, he 
was here, as in all other circumstances, fully de- 
termined not to do his own will, but the will of 
Him that sent him. Hence his prayer did not 
turn upon the relation of the plan to himself, 
but only upon its relation to the heart of the 
Father. When he perceived that it was God's 
will that he should take the dolorous way, and 
that there was really no other way, then in the 
full trust of love and obedience, he uttered the 
final word, " O my Father, if this cup may not 
pass away from me except I drink it, Thy will 
be done." 

I have thus attempted to bring before you tliis 
scene of the agony in the garden, so that its 
truth might be clearly discerned. I would have 
you see that while it surpasses our human experi- 
ence in extent and in depth, it does not show 
itself to be cUfferent in kind. In that hour of 
exceeding sorrow there was nothing which sep- 
arated our Elder Brother from ourselves. Here, 

3 



34 THE TRANSFIGURING OF THE CROSS. 



as well as elsewhere, lie showed himself our 
friend, our helper, and our example. If, in the 
bitterness of his most bitter woe, he did not lose 
the consciousness of the divine love, but was able 
to say, " Thy will be done," we also may know 
that whatever be the sorrow that afflicts us, and 
however deep the wounds that torture us, the 
heart of God is warm and tender, and His will is 
the way of our highest destiny. It may involve 
a cross; but it will evolve a crown. It may 
bring us to the hour when hope is darkest, but 
even in that hour Love will stand upon the 
threshold; and though we have wept all the 
night, joy cometh in the morning. Gethsemane 
is dark, Calvary is dark, and the tomb is dark ; 
but their darkness cannot hide the Light of Life, 
which is the Life of the World, which is Eternal, 
Unchanging Love. It is thus that the mystery 
of pain becomes the revelation of wisdom and 
the way to victory and peace. We may be sure 
that the prayer uttered by Jesus for his own 
glorification, and that uttered by him in the 
extremity of his anguish for the passing of the 
cup were both inspired by the same faith ; and 
the answer to each alike contributed to the per= 
fection of his own soul, and enabled him to go 
on to the possession of that joy which no man 
could take from him. We may be equally sure 



WHEN HOPE WAS DARKEST. 



35 



that if we follow in his footsteps there will be 
given unto us strength to endure, and vigor to 
press on, however difficult the way, and at the 
last to find success in life even where it seems 
to fail. 



11. 

JESUS BETRAYED AND ARRESTED. 



He is despised and rejected of men ; a man of sorrows 
and acquainted with grief. — Isaiah. 

They [the Jews] must carry up their malignant cause 
to a tribunal under whose oppression they were subdued, 
whose presence was the x>ei'sistent witness to their subjec- 
tion, and appeal to a pagan governor whom they hated and 
despised. Only one thing they dreaded more, — to yield 
themselves to the prophet of Nazareth, whose claims they 
could not disprove, whose influence they could not resist. 
Men have humbled themselves to be exalted ; they humbled 
themselves to be debased. — Alexander McKenzie, in 
Christ Himself. 

It deserves notice that the special sin with which the 
house of Annas is charged is that of " whispering, " or 
hissing like vipers, which seems to refer to private influ- 
ence on the judges in their administration of justice, 
whereby morals were corrupted, judgment perverted, and 
the Shekinah withdrawn from Israel. — Edersheim, in 
The High Priests and their Families. 



II. 

JESUS BETRAYED AND ARRESTED. 

Then the hand and the captain and officers of the 
Jews took Jesus and hound him and led him away 
to Annas first. — John xviii. 12, 13. 

THE incidents belonging to the arrest and 
preliminary trial of Jesus are significant 
mainly because of the result that has proceeded 
from them. 

Thousands of men have perished through the 
treachery of pretended friends and the vindic- 
tiveness of irrational enemies, and their story has 
been written by authors of established renown; 
but the world has paid little heed to the record, 
and comparatively little good or evil has grown 
out of the deed. You may count up the mar- 
tyrs from righteous Abel to Zecharias, or from 
Socrates to John the Baptist, or from Paul to 
Abraham Lincoln, and no one of them, nor all of 
them together, has commanded such attention from 
the world as this Jesus who suffered under Pon- 
tius Pilate. He alone has transcended the limits 
of race and nation and time, and become a cos- 



40 THE TRANSFIGURING OF THE CROSS. 

mopolitan moral ideal. Alone of all men he 
claimed the world as his inheritance ; and alone 
of all men have his followers endeavored to make 
the world the area of his kingdom. We say 
nothing now as to the actual success of this 
claim; you may regard it as visionary, futile, 
and impossible of fulfilment; but if it be all a 
dream, certainly no such splendid dream has 
ever proceeded from any other source. Paul's 
magnificent assumption has never been equalled 
in boldness, whatever may be the truth concern- 
ing it: "For* since by man came death, by man 
came also the resurrection from the dead ; for as in 
Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made 
alive." In some way this assumption has be- 
come the firm belief of a vast number of men in 
all ages and among all races where it has been 
proclaimed. It is to-day the faith of the largest 
civilization and the profoundest culture to which 
this world has attained. It is of some importance, 
then, that we follow step by step, so far as we 
can, the course of Jesus as he went on his dolor- 
ous way to the cross. The slightest detail which 
can be verified will be of value to us either in 
removing obstacles to a reasonable faith, or in 
confirming us in the truth. 

We have already considered the experience of 
Jesus when he first entered the garden of Geth- 



JESUS BETRAYED AND ARRESTED. 41 



semane. Then and there he was overwhelmed, 
yet not utterly cast down. From the beginning 
he had put himself into the Father's hands ; he 
accepted Avithout reserve the work which God 
had given him to do ; he believed implicitly in 
the divine omnipotence ; and therefore he could 
not regard himself as under the dominion of 
fate. "All things," he said, "are possible unto 
thee." But deeper than any other feeling was 
the consciousness of his Father's love. He 
knew that he was the well-beloved son, and 
that an unchanging God would never entertain 
wrath toward him. Hence his prayer that the 
cup of suffering might pass from him, if this 
were in accordance with the divine will. But 
this suffering had been made inevitable by the 
free act of the people in rejecting him who had 
come as their Saviour. To avert it, it would be 
necessary to perform a miracle which would 
have taken from him the whole merit of salva- 
tion. Removing the cup involved another way. 
Hence the submissive cry in the very depths of 
his agony: "Not my will, but thine be done," 
The passion and the pathos of this suffering is 
especially emphasized in the repeated turning to 
the disciples whom he had left to watch with 
him. Overcome by weariness, and failing to fully 
sympathize with their Master, and wholly uncon- 



42 THE TRANSFIGURING OF THE CROSS. 



scions of the real and near peril which awaited 
him, they fell asleep ; and in spite of freqnent 
arousings, conld not overcome their heaviness. 
Physical weakness had enervated their will, 
though it had not touched their spirit in its 
affectional nature. They were faithful in heart, 
but their faithfulness was not stimulated to ac- 
tion. They therefore missed the exalted privi- 
lege of sharing with their Master the trial to 
which he Avas subjected, and the victory which 
he Avon. He trod the Avinepress alone, and alone 
did he accomplish his triumph. When for the 
last time he Avent to his disciples, it was not to 
ask them again to watch Avith him, but to tell 
tliem that the need had passed. His prayer had 
been heard ; and he saAV the way of his destiny 
coinciding Avith the Avay of his duty, and that 
Avith the Avay of a Avilling obedience. He was 
prepared now for Avhatever might come. So he 
said to his disciples, "It is enough; sleep on 
noAv and +ake your rest." Evidently he thought 
that some time would intervene ere he Avould be 
arrested. Presently, the disciples, refreshed in 
body, would aAvake, and then they would be pre- 
pared to stand by him in the events that Avere 
hastening on ; but no such time was given. 
Scarcely had he spoken the quieting and com- 
forting words than he hears the noise of an 



JESUS BETRAYED AND ARRESTED. 43 



approaching band. There -is a gleam of glitter- 
ing spears and a sound of clanking swords and 
clattering staves. The band widens out as it 
comes up the slope of Olivet, and men run 
here and there with lighted torches, peering 
beneath the dense shade of the trees, where 
the light of the moon fails. There is no 
time now for sleep : and Jesus' Avord of warning 
is spoken none too soon : " Rise up, let us be 
going ! He that betrayeth me is at hand." This 
may mean either that they must retreat and 
escape if they can, or that they must go forward 
and meet the impending crisis. It is possible 
that one thought followed the other in quick suc- 
cession, the first being prompted by Jesus' anxi- 
ety to save his disciples, and the second by his 
own resolution to face the peril which now 
threatened. But if any intention of escape was 
in the mind of Jesus it was quickly rendered 
futile by the act of Judas. It is he who leads 
the band : and on discovering Jesus, he at once 
steps forth, and greeting the Master with accus- 
tomed words of welcome, kisses him with pre- 
tended tenderness. Just how Jesus met this 
infamous transaction we cannot tell. The earli- 
est record makes no mention of any reply, while 
the latest omits the incident altogether. Accord- 
ing to Matthew, Jesus responds with a question 



44 THE TRANSFIGURING OF THE CROSS. 



which is the utterance of a man heart-broken 
at this shameful expression of treachery, and 
yet holding on to his love, and trusting still to 
its redemptive power: "Friend, wherefore art 
thou come?" If Jesus indeed said this, and 
certainly it is like him, we may see both in the 
words and the tone in which they were uttered, 
the reason for that remorse which came upon the 
traitor, and which found its only possible out- 
come in suicide. According to Luke, the reply 
of Jesus was, Judas, betrayest thou the Son of 
Man with a kiss?" The indignation of this 
expression and its formal self-consciousness is 
not in keeping with the character of Jesus, and 
we cannot therefore believe it to be other than 
a tradition. It may have been spoken by a dis- 
ciple, possibly by Peter, and in a later time attrib- 
uted to Jesus as a natural utterance ; but it is 
not like him, as the other saying is. We cannot 
now enter into a discussion of this act of Judas ; 
but it is perhaps well to say in passing that 
there is not the slightest evidence that Judas 
expected that the betrayal would end in the 
death of Jesus. He did not mean to have it go 
so far. The sin of Judas, in its beginning and 
in its intention, was a very small ordinary sin. 
The devil that was in him was no terrible mon- 
ster arousing horror and calling for fierce male- 



JESUS BETRAYED AND ARRESTED. 45 



diction such as is contained in tlie 109tli Psalm. If 
this Psalm be a prophetic description and denuncia- 
tion of the traitor, it is certainly an exaggeration. 
The betrayal gets its motive and its impulse 
from a small-minded jealousy which blinded the 
mind of Judas to the consequences of his act. n 
In the forefront of his crime, and leading directly 
to all its terrible results, is the common and 
every-day sin of thoughtlessness. When he 
offered to deliver Jesus, he did not think out 
his proposition to its end. If those scheming, 
wily priests and Pharisees had said to him, " We 
intend to crucify your master; and if we get 
him into our hands we will do it ; " and if he 
had believed that it would be done, neither tliirty 
pieces, nor thi'ee thousand pieces of silver would 
have bought him. In our determination to place 
Judas among the exceptional' criminals of history 
we magnify his crime, and forget that in the self- 
estimation of all the disciples he was no worse 
than any of them. We forget, too, how sel- 
dom great hatreds come from great wrongs, and 
how frequently they come from little ones. The 
" bacillus of treason " may be convej'ed to fruit- 
ful soil by a look, or even by a simple not-look- 
ing. It produces an incurable disease all the 
same ; and the terrible thing about this is that 
the disease denies itself to the end. This was 



46 THE TRANSFIGURING OF THE CROSS. 

the reason Judas did not see the result of his act. 
He did not believe himself to be infected with 
treason. He was anxious only to satisfy that 
little spite of his, and to reach by a quicker 
method than honest dealing his ultimate purpose. 
But when he saw the result, it was more than 
he could bear. As he flung himself to death, 
his last words might have been, " I did n't mean 
to do it." But he did it ; and from that day to 
this the name of Judas Iscariot is detested and 
loathed of men. It is the symbol of abysmal 
vileness. 

When the Master had been pointed out, the 
officers at once stepped forward to arrest him. 
The disciples, however, made some resistance, but 
Jesus commanded them to desist. Without heed- 
ing this, one of them drew his sword and cut off 
the ear of a servant of the high priest, who was 
standing near. This action seems to have put 
all the disciples in peril ; but Jesus drew atten- 
tion to himself by demanding, ''Whom seek 
ye ? " They answer, " Jesus of Nazareth." He 
replied, "I am he; if therefore ye seek me, let 
these go their way." The answer was sufficient; 
for they had orders to take him only. They 
therefore bound him and led him away, while 
the disciples all forsook him and fled. 

According to the Fourth Gospel Jesus was now 



JESUS BETRAYED AND ARRESTED. 47 



led to the palace of Annas, father-in-law to 
Caiaphas, the liigh priest. The other gospels 
make no mention of this, but it is probably a real 
historical addition to the facts of the trial. It 
must be conceded that there was no certainty of 
the arrest of Jesus that night. Time and time 
again the chief priests had made arrangements to 
assassinate him, but they had failed. He had 
been forewarned by his friends, or had exercised 
his own ingenuity, and so had escaped. These 
failures compelled another plan of action. Caia- 
phas, with great political sagacity, had demon- 
strated to them that it would be against public 
policy to murder him ; but if they could cause 
his arrest and conviction by Roman authority, it 
would be for the saving of the nation. Into this 
scheme they readily fell, bat they could not have 
carried it out had not Judas assisted them. 
From the time he left the table in the room 
where they had celebrated the Passover, two 
hours had elapsed. They were not sure, there- 
fore, whether Jesus could be readily found. If 
he were found at once he could not be immedi- 
ately tried, because the Sanhedrin, or high court, 
did not assemble till morning-; and as the next 
day was a feast day, it was important to hurry 
up the trial, and get the approval and endorse- 
ment of the Roman governor, together with the 



48 THE TRANSFIGURING OF THE CROSS. 



sentence for execution, before the people from 
the provinces, and especially from Galilee, should 
hear of it. They were sure to be in the city in 
great numbeis, and it was well known that he 
had many friends in the country who might pos- 
sibly come to his rescue. A preliminary exami- 
nation, therefore, would expedite matters. Annas 
accordingly held himself in readiness to enter 
upon the hearing if Jesus were brought before 
him. The capture was successful, and Jesus 
was informally arraigned before Annas. Around 
him stood the partisans of the high j)riest, but he 
himself was without advocate or friend. Instead 
of acquainting him with the cause of his arrest, 
and preferring charges, Annas began by demand- 
ing of liim who his disciples were, and Avhat was 
the character of his teaching. This was inquisi- 
tion, not examination. It was an act of lawless 
tjTanny. Both these questions assumed that 
Jesus was the head of a secret society whose 
teachings and practices were illegal and revolu- 
tionary. Jesus at once exposed the absurdity of 
the question and the stupidity of the questioner, 
by appealing to undisputed facts. He declared 
that he had clone nothing and taught nothing in 
secret ; his place of instruction had been in the 
Temple, where Jews were accustomed to resort ; 
if Annas would know the character of this teach- 



JESUS BETRAYED AXD ARRESTED. 49 



ing, let liim summon witnesses, for there were 
plenty of them. This straightforward answer 
was somewhat confusing to the self-appointecl 
judge, and he doubtless showed his humiliation, 
for one of his servants who stood by, with evi- 
dent intent to yindicate his superior, struck 
Jesus a brutal blow in the face, at the same 
time asking, " Answerest thou the high priest 
so ? Such an insult demanded a proper reply, 
not only for the sake of Jesus himself, but for 
the sake of law thus outraged in the presence of 
one of its judges. If Jesus had intended that 
his instruction in the Sermon on the Mount 
should be literally and always strictly construed, 
this was the time for him to turn the other 
cheek; but instead of thus submitting to the 
brutal insolence of a servant, he repelled the act 
with great dignity and quiet force. Turning to 
his assailant he said, If I have spoken evil, 
bear witness of the evil, but if well, why smitest 
thou me ? " This was a vigorous answer. It shows 
that the spirit of the man was not cowed by his 
misfortimes. Beneath all external humiliation 
he carried a kingly heart. The prisoner was still 
a man. 

Jesus does not often speak in this way, but he 
does it with sufficient frequency to serve as a 
corrective to that slavish literalness which is 

4 



50 THE TRANSFIGURING OF THE CROSS. 

the criterion of many readers of the Bible. If 
sometimes the statement is made that Jesus was 
an Oriental, and used language in accordance 
with the customs of the East, straightway there 
is a remonstrance, and we are told that this is 
a scheme of those who wish to eliminate some 
truth from the Bible, or to weaken some precious 
doctrine, and so make way for a denial of the 
Bible altogether. Jesus, it is said, meant exactly 
what he said, and you must believe what he 
said, or deny him utterly. But if men are wise 
they will not suffer themselves to be driven to 
such an alternative, for in reality this lowers 
the criterion from the sayings of Jesus or the 
declarations of the Bible to the opinions of a man 
concerning these sayings. More than all this, 
there is something better than the words of 
Jesus, and that is his life. His conduct inter- 
prets the Sermon on the Mount much better than 
lexicon and grammar. The lexicon and grammar 
set forth the doctrine of non-resistance without 
any exception. Read in their light only, the doc- 
trine is absolute and imperative. The conduct 
of Jesus shows us that there are times when 
revilings and insults are to be resented, and when 
the sword is to be unsheathed and sharpened 
for the destruction of the oppressor. Jesus as 
the captain of our salvation is no less our example 



JESUS BETRAYED AND ARRESTED. 51 



as a warrior, than as a suffering victim is he our 
example in humility and self-sacrificing love. 
His life, therefore, is not only the interpreter of 
liis doctrine, but it makes his doctrine. Neither 
non-resistance nor resistance can be called abso- 
lutely his doctrine, but acting in accordance with 
circumstances in so far as this does not involve 
or imply disloyalty to truth. And so the final 
question concerning all that is recorded about 
Jesus, or in fact all that is written in the Bible, is 
What is its outcome in life ? or. What expression 
does it demand in conduct? The force of the 
bold answer given to Annas, and of the firm and 
indignant reply to the impudent and insulting 
assailant of his person, is seen in the sudden 
cessation of the examination. It was scarcely 
prudent to trifle with a prisoner who knew so 
well his own rights, and had so much courage in 
defending them. Already compromised by a dis- 
graceful scene, Annas would not venture further, 
but as soon as possible sent Jesus bound to the 
high court of the nation, of which Caiaphas was 
the chief judge. 

The morning hour was now approaching, but 
it was a great day in Jerusalem, and hence 
all were early astir. The entire court was 
there, and the trial of Jesus began without 
delay. It was conducted apparently in accord- 



52 THE TRANSFIGURING OF THE CROSS. 



ance with the forms of law then in vogue. This 
was necessary because both prosecution and de- 
fence were obliged to carry every case in which 
the sentence of death was involved to the judg- 
ment seat of Roman authority ; but although the 
trial was technically correct and in order, it was 
only a mockery. There was really no intention 
to bring out the facts on which the accusation 
was based. The court was made up of two 
parties, Pharisees and Sadducees. The Phari- 
sees did not want to hear a public repetition 
of what Jesus had said concerning them — this 
would have delighted the Sadducees. The Sad- 
ducees did not want to hear what Jesus had said 
about them — this would have delighted the 
Pharisees. Telling the whole truth would have 
changed the places of accused and accusers. 
Jesus would then have been the judge and the 
Sanhedrin the criminal. To avert this a tem- 
porary coalition Avas necessary. The Pharisees 
consented to overlook the brutality and cruelty 
and ambition of the Sadducees, and the Saddu- 
cees consented to ignore their contempt for the 
hypocrisy, double-dealing, and pious inanity of 
the Pharisees. The bond which united them 
was a common hatred of Jesus, and a positive 
antipathy to the righteousness which he said 
was the only condition of entrance to the king- 



JESUS BETRAYED AND ARRESTED. 53 



dom of heaven. This was the head and front 
of his offending, but they could not put that 
into the indictment. It was necessary, however, 
that a capital charge be brought against him, 
for they were determined on a capital conviction. 
This charge was blasphemy, and the penalty on 
conviction, death by stoning. Note now the order 
of the trial. The court is seated in a semicircle 
upon cushions placed upon the floor. CaiajDhas 
the high priest occupies the middle place. Next 
to him on either side are the most honored judges. 
The prisoner stands bound before the high priest. 
On the right and left, at the extreme ends of the 
crescent, are the two clerks of the court, one to 
record the acquittal if the votes agree to it, the 
other to write the sentence of condemnation if 
the prisoner is convicted. The other officers of 
the court stand back of the prisoner, each per- 
forming his appointed duty. Two guard the 
accused ; one calls the witnesses ; others are 
bearers of cords and thongs and scourges, and 
other instruments which may be useful in exe- 
cuting the orders of the court. 

The law provided a counsel for the defence, 
and permitted the accused to speak for himself, 
and also to summon witnesses in his own behalf. 
It made the presence of an accuser necessary, 
and also required, that the consequences of per- 



54 THE TRANSFIGURING OF THE CROSS. 



jury on the part of witnesses should be plainly 
declared before the testimony was given. But 
in this case most of these provisions were set 
aside. The chief judge is the accuser ; witnesses 
for the prosecution are summoned, but they con- 
tradict each other. For awhile it seemed as if 
the whole case would fail for lack of any con= 
sistent evidence. The judges were in despair, 
for nothing as yet had been adduced which would 
warrant sentence of death or further prosecution 
before PilatCo At last one man was found who 
said that he heard Jesus say on one occasion, " I 
will destroy the temple made with hands, and 
within three days I will build another temple 
without hands." There were some who at- 
tempted to corroborate this testimony, but on 
examination were unable to agree as to just what 
Jesus did say ; but the high priest, with simulated 
zeal for the holiness of the Temple, pretended to 
see in this testimony the evidence he wanted. 
Springing from his place he cried out to Jesns, 
"Answerest thou nothing to what these testify 
against thee ? " But Jesus declined to answer. 
Had he spoken, it v/ould have been to ears that 
could not hear. He had counselled his disciples 
not to cast pearls before swine, and that utter- 
ance concerning the Temple, which has in it a 
royal wealth of meaning, would, even with his 



JESUS BETRAYED AND ARRESTED. 55 



explanation of it, have been utterly beyond tlie 
appreciation of his enemies. Here the trial 
might legally have closed ; but it was hardly safe 
to put the question of guilt to vote upon so 
flimsy and contradictory evidence as had been 
presented, especially in view of the silence of 
Jesus. Caiaphas therefore made one more move. 
He had in a sense measured the character of the 
prisoner. He knew that it would be impossible 
to draw from him any confession of guilt. No 
false charge could make him utter a word which 
might prejudice his case. He would remain 
silent, and lay the whole burden of -proof upon 
his accusers ; but if a false charge could be 
brought under the semblance of truth, and 
couched in such language that silence would 
imperil the honor of Jesus, and cast a cloud 
upon the motive pnd mission of his life, then a 
chance would offer itself for his conviction. 
Jesus was prepared to suffer any indignity that 
might be inflicted upon him personally, but he 
would not suffer the truth to be denied even by 
implication. Caiaphas, perceiving this temper of 
his prisoner, played upon this string. As if 
about to close the session, he demanded in a 
casual manner : If thou art the Messiah, tell 
us ! " To this Jesus replied : " If I tell you ye 
will not believe ; and if I ask ye will not answer." 



56 THE TRANSFIGURING OF THE CROSS. 



Quickly the high priest replied, indicating his 
willingness to accept the word of Jesus if made 
under oath. ■ With solemn tone and distinct 
voice he made his second demand : " I adjure 
thee by the living God, that thou tell us whether 
thou be the Christ, the Son of God ! " To this 
solemn adjuration there was but one answer. In 
the face of it, Jesus must declare himself, or 
forever deny himself. So calmly, deliberately, 
with full consciousness of the result, he declares 
and affirms, and makes oath to the truth of the 
charge: "Thou hast said it;" and in order to 
enforce the message he adds, " Nevertheless I 
say unto you, henceforth ye shall see the Son of 
Man sitting at the right hand of power, and com- 
ing on the clouds of heaven." 

The high priest, with all his Sadclucean di- 
plomacy, was not prepared for this answer. He 
knew well the language of the ancient prophets, 
and he believed in a coming Messiah whose 
throne should be as the throne of God, to whom 
the heavens and the earth would render obei- 
sance, who should be crowned with glory, and 
whose countenance should be fairer than the sons 
of men when turned toward his friends, but 
terrible as an army with banners when turned 
against his enemies. With such a belief it was 
impossible for him to connect the Messiah with 



JESUS BETRAYED AND ARRESTED. 57 



such a forlorn and helpless man as now stood 
bound before him. There was iio more pretence 
now in his behavior ; but with genuine abhor- 
rence, and perhaps with fear lest such an utter- 
ance of blasphemy from one who was so far from 
realizing the Messianic ideal should bring down 
the vengeance of heaven upon his beloved city, 
he rent his priestly robes, and baring his naked 
breast to the gaze of the court, he cried out in a 
voice loud and yet half muffled" with fear and 
horror, " He has spoken blasphemy ! What 
further need have we of witnesses ? Behold now 
ye heard the blasphemy I What think ye ? " 

That expressed his entire and genuine convic- 
tion. What had started in as a comedy of errors 
had suddenly changed to a tragedy. The stories 
of the false witnesses, their contradictions and 
tergiversations, were all forgotten in the unpre- 
cedented assumption of Jesus himself; and so 
forcible and terrible was the impression made by 
his confession, that, contrary to the rule, the 
court neither discussed the question nor cast 
a ballot. They declared him guilty by acclama- 
tion. With one voice they cried out, " He is 
deserving of death." The verchct of course is 
unreasonable, and we should set it aside ; but it 
is well to remember that in some of our judg- 
ments against men who are perhaps idealists, and 



58 THE TRANSFIGURING OF THE CROSS. 



are striving to make plain a larger conception of 
Christian truth, we may be as unreasonable in 
our verdicts as were these Jews who could not 
see in Jesus the fulfilment of their notions of 
Messianic prophecy. It has often been said that 
vice is the excess of virtue. Certain it is that 
religion, under the banner of which every man is 
supposed to be a faithful servant of God and 
man, oftentimes leads to practical atheism and 
the worst form of despotism. Some crimes have 
been committed in the name of Liberty, but in 
the name of Religion the roll of murdered inno- 
cents is beyond human computation. Yet it is 
not fair to lay all these crimes at the doors of 
liberty and religion. When liberty enchains, it 
ceases to be liberty ; when it trespasses upon the 
rights of others, it becomes license, and so loses 
its characteristic virtue. When religion takes 
on the form of dogmatic utterance, it is no more 
religion but philosophy, good or bad; when it 
interprets inspiration it becomes theology, and it 
then loses its infallibility; when it puts on a 
ritual and is identified by its clothes, it is simply 
an order of fashion, a figure-head without a soul ; 
when it expends itself in feelings and emotions, 
it is in danger of abdicating reason and losing its 
head. There can be, however, no religion with- 
out dogma, without a theology, without a ritual, 



JESUS BETRAYED AND ARRESTED, 59 



without feelings, emotions, and sincere, strong 
convictions; yet the ineffable essence and life of 
religion is not in any one or all these things. It 
is indeed so independent of them that it refuses 
to be identified by them. We may not be able 
positively to define it, but we can tell what it is 
not. So we can say, looking at this trial of 
Jesus, that it was not the religion of the Jews 
which condemned him, but a misapprehension 
and false application of that religion which 
judged him worthy of death. It was Judaism, 
not Religion, that condemned him. Furthermore, 
we can see how a strong conviction blindly fol- 
lowed does not save a man from guilt, notwith- 
standing the honesty of his decision. Some 
years ago a pessimistic philosopher flung out this 
caution to the scientific and religious world. 
Verify your compass I " It was a warning well 
put, and to which men will do well to take due 
heed, whether their compass be a Bible or what 
they call the laws of Nature or the authority of 
a church. 

There is a great trial going on to-day. Jesus 
no longer stands in visible form before the bar of 
Caiaphas, but he stands before the bar of your 
hearts. What do you think of him? Is he 
worthy of a crown or a cross ? Will you be his 
counsel for defence against the malignity of a 



60 THE TRANSFIGURING OF THE CROSS. 



world which hates him, or will you stand as 
prosecutor? The question is not whether you 
will advocate or contend against these or those 
opinions about him which are current in the 
theological world, but will you make his life 
your moral ideal, his connuandments your law, 
his service your cheerful labor, his self-denial 
your example, his friendship the aspiration of 
your soul, his kingdom of heaven the goal of 
your attainment? Upon the decision of these 
questions depends your future course in life. 
What you will do and be in the home and away 
from home, in business, in politics, in love, and in 
war, depends upon how you vote in the secret 
room of your own souls on the attitude you will 
take toward Jesus before the world. For, or 
against ; which ? The ancient decision of those 
Jews in that early morning trial concerns you 
only so far as it sheds light upon the character of 
Jesus, but your decision here and now is of -the 
greatest concern to you personally. It means a 
larger, ever widening productive life of good, or 
it means the gradual shrinking of the self to the 
dimensions of an isolated soul. 



III. 

THE TESTING OF SIMON PETER. 



Such indeed was this look. It was a flash of fire which 
irradiated the eyes of the apostle, which forcibly revealed 
the knowledge of himself, which constrained him to give 
glory to God ; which dissipated all his terrors, which 
calmed all his fears ; which raised his drooping courage, 
w^hich confirmed his feeble knees ; which reanimated his ex- 
piring zeal. — From a Sermon on Peter, by James Saurin, 
Minister at the Hague in 1705. 

I THINK that look of Christ might seem to say — 
" Thou Peter ! art thou then a common stone 
Which I at last must break my heart upon, 
For all God's charge to His high angels may 
Guard my foot better ? Did I yesterday 
Wash thy feet, my beloved, that they should run 
Quick to deny me 'neath the morning sun ? 
And do thy kisses like the rest betray 1 
The cock crows coldly. — Go, and manifest 
A late contrition, but no bootless fear ! 
For when thy final need is dreariest, 
Thou shalt not be denied as I am here — 
My voice to God and angels shall attest, 
Because I know this man, let him be clear! " 

Mrs. Browning. 



III. 



THE TESTING OF SIMON PETER. 

A?id Simon Peter folloiued Jesus and so did another 
discijjle. — John xviii. 15. 

/^^NE of the piincipal incidents at the trial of 
Jesus before the Jewish court is the 
denial of his Lord by Peter. The story is told 
by the four evangelists with great unanimity as 
to the main fact, but with such diversity of detail 
that a complete harmony is impossible. To those 
who look upon the sacred writings as the direct 
and immediate revelation of God this diversity 
has occasioned no little trouble, and various expe- 
dients have been tried by which to reconcile 
-absolute inerrancy with the facts of different 
records. The most common argument is that 
if we certainly knew all the facts connected with 
a given incident, there would be no discrepancy in 
the account, — a very obvious truism, but wholly 
inapplicable to the assumption of a perfect and 
complete revelation. If the revelation be com- 
plete, what need of calling in certain unknown 
things or making hypotheses to reconcile it ? Or 



64 THE TRANSFIGURING OF THE CROSS. 



if they could be discovered and it was found that 
thsT/ cleared away the discrepancies, then we 
should have the strange anomaly of uninspired 
facts giving credence to inspiration, or the less 
truth proving the greater. 

A more rational theory of Scripture avoids 
all this difficulty, without in the least impairing 
its credibility or marring its inspiration. We 
simply affirm what is universally acknowledged, 
— that while words are essential as a medium of 
conveying the truth, no truth is bound to any 
one form of words. No witness sees or hears 
precisely the same things as another witness. 
The difference is oftentimes the best evidence 
of the substantial truth of what they report. 
When the evidence is all in, the variations often 
make a harmonious whole. The real peril to 
Scripture comes from a practical refusal to ac- 
knowledge that its record of revelation comes 
under the same criterion of judgment as any 
other literature. If we assume that it is super- 
natural and transcendent, we have no way of 
proving it, and no way of bringing it into vital 
relation with our human life. If it be of another 
kind we cannot assimilate it. If, however, it be 
a message to men, it must come in the form and 
in the terms which are adapted to men. Placed 
here, it has a foundation which nothing can 



THE TESTING OF SIMON PETER. 65 



shake. The truth becomes communicable, and 
therefore hispiring as well as inspired. 

Now this story of Peters denial illustrates 
the need of a rational theory of Scripture, that 
is, a theory which permits it to be judged as other 
literature is judged ; and I will endeavor to pre- 
sent it so that you may see how the truth is 
brought out and maintained, notwithstanding the 
divergencies in the narration. Then we shall 
be able, I think, to make a fair estimate of the 
act of Peter, and give it the place it logically 
occupies in the trial of Jesus. 

All the accounts agree that the scene took 
place in the court of the palace of Caiaphas. 
This court was a quadrangle enclosed by the 
palace, entrance to which was afforded by a pas- 
sage from the street. The passage was guarded 
by a gate kept by a servant who was stationed 
there for the purpose. At the time of the arrest 
of Jesus all the disciples forsook him and fled. 
During the preliminary examination before Annas 
two of them recovered somewhat from their fear, 
and when Jesus was sent bound to Caiaphas 
they appeared on the scene. Three of the reports, 
however, mention only Peter. They tell us that 
he was within the court warming himself by the 
fire, and that a maid servant charged him with 
having been with Jesus. To this he replies in 

5 



66 THE TRANSFIGURING OF THF CROSS, 



various terms. One report affirms that he said, 
I know not what thou sayest ; *' another, " I 
know not neither understand what thou saj^est ; " 
another " Woman, I know him not." The Fourth 
Gospel tells us that one disciple, who was ac- 
quainted with the high priest, went in with 
Jesus to the court. Soon afterwards he learned 
that Peter was outside the gate, and he went and 
spoke to the maid that kept the gate and obtained 
permission to bring in his friend. As Peter 
passed through the gate the servant asked: 
" Art thou not one of this man's disciples ? " 
and Peter replied, "I am not." 

This is the first denial, and the report varies all 
the way from an evasion which contained a half 
truth to a direct answer which was wholly a lie. 

In the second scene two of the reporters tell us 
that a woman again charged him with being one 
of the disciples. In one case he denies with an 
oath, and in the other with a simple affirmation 
in the negative. Another reporter tells us that 
it was a man who charged him with being a dis- 
ciple, and still another affirms that it was a 
general charge made by many. This is the 
second denial ; and the variation is in the sex of 
those who made the charge, and in the varying 
degree of forceful language with which the 
charge was repelled. 



THE TESTING OF SIMON PETER. 67 



In the third scene, two reporters say that the 
charge was general, and made by several persons, 
and urged on account of his speech as a Gali- 
Isean, and to this he replies with cursing and 
swearing. A third reporter tells us that it was 
a man who made this accusation, and a fourth 
tells us that this man was a servant of the man 
whose ear Peter had cut off while in the garden ; 
but neither of these latter reports makes any 
mention of the vehement language used by 
Peter. 

In conclusion, only one of the narratives speaks 
of the cock as crowing a second time, while all 
mention it at the third denial. Three narratives 
give an account of Peter's repentance with weep- 
ing, and one says nothing about it. Two tell us 
that he went out weeping as he went, and one 
infers that lie wept where he was. 

Now these are the dry and matter-of-fact state- 
ments of the four historians who have left us the 
record. It is obvious, I think, that they are 
independent and original reports. One was not 
made up from another, but each came from a 
different source. The story as told in Matthew 
appears to have come from a Jemsh source 
somewhat prejudicial to Peter; the story in 
Mark was derived from Peter himself ; the story 
in Luke may have come from a Greek proselyte, 



68 THE TRANSFIGURING OF THE CROSS. 



and tliat in the Fourth Gospel must be attributed 
to John. 

But this dry detail has a great deal of life in it, 
and that life and the whole vivifying truth that 
is in it must come through an imaginative con- 
ception of the circumstances. For as Browning 
says of his great work, " Fancy with fact is just 
one fact the more ; " so if we would realize the 
substantial verity in these diverse records, and 
see the full strength of their inherent inspira- 
tion, they must be "informed, transpierced, and 
thridded " by the imagination tliat sees other 
lives in the light of one's own experience. If we 
can do this we shall get a picture that will live 
before us, in true color, right perspective, and 
proportionate emphasis. This is the end aimed 
at and reached by literary and ethical interpreta- 
tion of literature ; but if we deny our imagination, 
and insist upon a verbal harmony, we may, in- 
deed, produce a kind of harmony, but there will 
be no more beauty or life in it than there is in 
the putting together of the mortised and tenoned 
blocks in a Chinese puzzle. 

Let us then endeavor to bring before us the 
actual facts in this denial of Peter. 

First of all we must get some conception of 
the man. He was a fisherman who followed his 
occupation not for sport, but as a means of liveli- 



THE TESTING OF SIMON PETER. 69 



hood. He was a rough, rugged, and strong man, 
liable to mighty impulses of temper as sudden 
and fierce as the storms which made the waves 
boisterous on the lake where he was accustomed 
to sail and fish. He did most of his work naked, 
that he might be unincumbered in battle with 
the sea. Endurance and hardship, and the pre- 
carious nature of his occupation, had enlarged a 
natural courage to supreme boldness and great 
self-confidence. When he was summoned to dis- 
cipleship he had acquired sufiicient wealth to 
make his acceptance a matter of real self-sacrifice, 
and this he willingly made, entering w^ith his 
whole heart, and as far as his understanding 
would permit, into the schemes and plans of his 
Master. From the very first he took a foremost 
position among the twelve, and was one of the 
three whom Jesus chose as the memberc of his 
inner council. It was he who made the first 
great confession of faith in the Messiah, and it 
was he to whom Jesus, speaking in an allegoric 
manner, declared, " Thou art Peter, and upon this 
rock will I build my congregation, and the gates 
of Hades shall not prevail against it." On ac- 
count of his self-confidence he sometimes over- 
stepped the bounds of modesty and deference, and 
rallied his Master on his depression of spirits 
and his forebodings of evil. Jesus, however, 



70 THE TRANSFIGURING OF THE CROSS. 



understood the nature of his disciple, and did not 
hesitate to rebuke him when there was need of 
it. He even applied to him the same language 
as that with which he himself met the tempta- 
tion in the wilderness. Satan," he said, ad- 
dressing Peter, " get thee behind me, for thou 
savorest not the things that be of God." On the 
whole, however, Peter was loyal and sincere. 
Of the avarice and small-mindedness which 
characterized Judas, he had none ; nor was .he 
guilty of the calculating prudence of Philip ; nor 
was he dull of comprehension, as Judas Lebbseus ; 
nor did he know how to sympathize with the 
agnostic, though faithful disciple, Thomas. He 
was born to be a leader, ruling men by force, by 
the weight of his assertions, and by the downright 
strength of his personality. His weakness was 
in his superior self-confidence, and in that egotism 
which assured him he could not be taken una- 
wares. On the front of his escutcheon he might 
have engraved the words, " Always prepared." 
The course of his life shows for the most part 
that he was true to his ideal. But the fatal ele- 
ment in that trust was that his resources reached 
no further back than himself; hence, when his 
self-confidence deserted him, he was utterly lost. 
At the command of his Master, he would walk 
on the water, but when he began to sink he for- 



THE TESTING OF SIMON PETER. 71 



got even how to swim. Such a man as this needs 
sifting. Jesus told him that Satan had asked 
that he might have him for this very purpose. 
He was the only one of the disciples whom the 
devil counted it worth a special effort to obtain. 
Judas was only small game, and he could 
bring but little advantage to the kingdom of 
evil if he betrayed his master; but if Peter 
could be won, then the scheme of Jesus would 
fail. When a man is estimated highly, both 
by his friends and enemies, then we know that 
he is of some value. This was the case with 
Peter. Satan had asked for and obtained the 
privilege of trying him, but Jesus had inter- 
posed his prayer that his friend might not 
fail in his faith. The issue then was joined 
between them. 

The trial, or test, begins at the Last Supper. 
The preliminary conflict is in the matter of wash- 
ing the disciples' feet. Peter's refusal to allow 
Jesus to perform this service for him is the first 
victory won by the devil. He is beaten down 
and overcome, but Jesus comes to the rescue, 
and Peter recovers; but in the impetuosity of 
his subsequent submission to the will of Jesus, 
he is almost borne over again into the enemy's 
ranks. When the supper is ended and Jesus 
begins to tell his disciples of his going away, 



72 THE TRANSFIGURING OF THE CROSS. 



. Peter demands whither he is going, and professes 
to be willing to lay down his life for the Master's 
sake. He undoubtedly meant this, and would 
have done it; but Jesus tells him that the cock 
will not crow till he has thrice denied that he 
knows him. This was in the early evening. 
Peter was then wide awake, and full of courage ; 
and if he did not dispute the saying, we must be- 
lieve the reason to be that he thought it so wholly 
improbable that it was not worth while to deny 
it. Now follows the long table talk, and the 
wonderful prayer at the close. The disciples 
saw the ecstasy of Jesus in this conversation 
and prayer, and were themselves affected by its 
thrilling mysticism and its portentous language. 
They could not understand it all, but they saw 
their Master as they had never seen him before. 
The sublimit}^ of his rapture, the positiveness of 
heavenly communion, the clearness of his hope 
of ultimate victory, and the firmness of his grasp 
of thought in relation to themselves, showed 
them how the supernatural was no transcendent 
notion but an immanent fact, realizing itself in 
the natural, and assimilating itself to it. In that 
prayer, God, heaven, earth, Jesus, and themselves 
were all involved in one kingdom, and under 
one dominant authority. 

Now consider what the effect must have been 



THE TESTING OF SIMON PETER. 73 



upon these disciples as this high conversation 
and prayer went on. You have listened in 
breathless attention to the rendering of a mar- 
vellous symphony. As its tones have risen and 
fallen on your ears, and you haA^e become 
absorbed in the development of the theme, you 
have forgotten your physical condition, the strain 
and stress of the attention, the burden and weiglit 
of the joyful pain it gave you; and when it 
ceased you have hardly known whether you 
were in the body or out of the body. If you 
will allow your imagination to have its work, 
you will see something of what the result must 
have been upon these disciples as Jesus con- 
cluded that prayer which now forms the seven- 
teenth chapter of John. It was midnight when 
it was finished, and then they all departed for 
the garden on the side of the Mount of Olives. 
The streets of the city were filled with people 
as they wended their way thither. A mysterious 
sense of danger is upon them. Jesus tells them 
that before morning dawns they will be scattered 
as sheep without a shepherd, for they will all 
be offended because of him. Then Peter, fore- 
most as usual, speaks up. Though all shall be 
offended yet will not I." But Jesus only sadly 
repeats the prediction he made at the table, 
" I tell thee, Peter, the cock shall not crow before 



74 THE TRANSFIGURING OF THE CROSS. 



thou hast denied that thou knowest me." They 
enter the garden, and there Jesus breaks com- 
pletely down, and gives way to the anguish 
which filled his soul, as he thinks of his work 
which is done and yet not done, and Avhich 
cannot be done without him. The agony grows 
heavier and heavier, but it does not separate 
him from the Father. More closely does he 
cling to Him as the deeper he enters into the 
shadow. The disciples, wearied, fall asleep, yet 
to only one of them does he speak : " Simon, 
couldst not thou watch with me for one hour ? " 
The hour passes, and strength is given him to 
drink the bitter cup. Then comes the arrest. 
The disciples are now wide awake. Peter proves 
his valor by making a bold attack upon one 
of the officers, but the blow fails of its aim, and 
the man is only wounded. At the command of 
the Master, Peter puts up his sword ; and then, 
as the officers gather about Jesus, he sees there 
is no hope of rescue, and together with the rest 
he takes to flight. It would have been well for 
him if he had stayed away, but he was not 
the man to beat a permanent retreat. Love and 
natural courage drew him back and carried him 
into the very midst of danger. Alone he makes 
his way as speedily as possible to the city and 
on to the palace of the high priest. At last he 



THE TESTING OF SIMOX PETER. 75 



stands before the gate, but it is closed. In some 
way another disciple, who by special favor was 
already within the court, learns of Peter's pres- 
ence and gets permission to bring him in. Peter 
joyfully acce^Dts the chance ; but just as he enters, 
the maid servant who attends the gate gets a 
good look at him, and her suspicions are aroused. 
She suddenly flings at him the charge, half ques- 
tion and half assertion : " Thou also wast with 
the Nazarene, even Jesus ! " Peter is taken una- 
wares. Full of desire to be there, trusting in the 
safe conduct of the other disciple, conscious 
also of the sincerity of his motive, he does not 
stop to reflect upon the full meaning of the accu- 
sation ; but regarding it as the unwarranted and 
uncalled for remark of a subordinate, he sees 
nothing criminal in evading a question which 
threatened to prevent him from occupjdng the 
place Avliich he had by an unexpected fortune 
just obtained, and therefore he replied : " I 
neither know nor understand what you are talk- 
ing about." 

How many would regard this evasion as per- 
fectly legitimate I Do we not so answer when 
a question is asked us by one who has no right 
to make the inquir}', and especially if the inquiry 
is directed against our interests? And yet we 
are never quite satisfied with such an evasion. 



76 THE TRANSFIGURING OF THE CROSS. 



We feel that the answer is not wholly true, 
though in the instant when we answered it we 
felt no compunction. But reflection shows us 
the falsity of our position, and we invariably say 
to ourselves : If the question had not been 
sprung upon us, and we had been permitted time 
to think, we could have given an answer which 
would have been true, and yet safe for ourselves. 
Now the circumstances show that this was 
Peter's situation. He did not intend to be dis- 
loyal to his ]\Iaster. He was in the very act of 
proving his loyalty by his presence, and in fact 
doing, as he thought, more than any other disci- 
ple in this direction. He therefore looked upon 
the interruption of the servant as a hindrance 
to this end. But he very soon saw it was a 
mistake, and yet he could not retreat from it. 
When he was accused the second time he had 
to tell a downright lie to cover up the half lie 
already told. Now he was committed to this 
course. Presently a necessity arose for a third 
lie. A kinsman of Malchus, whose ear Peter 
had cut off in an attempt to kill him, now comes 
forward and recognizes him as the man who did 
that deed. " Did I not see thee in the garden 
with him?" There is now no help for the poor 
man. His natural courage vanishes. He is per- 
haps not wholly himself, for it is now three 



THE TESTING OF SIMON PETER. 77 



o'clock in the morning and he has been under 
a terrible strain all the night long. The last 
hour has been full of horrible torture of mind. 
He has seen the determination of cruel men to 
kill his best friend, and he has heard only harsh 
and malicious words, and he has been betrayed 
by an incontinent rashness into an evasion of the 
truth and a positive denial ; and now that same 
overpowering impulse is upon him, and for the 
third time he denies any knowledge of his Lord 
and emphasizes his denial with oaths and curses. 
This is a fearful fall, and yet no execrations 
rise from the Master's lips, and no awful condem- 
nation springs from our own breasts. Pity and 
not blame is the emotion that struggles most for 
utterance. We do not even think of the hurt he 
has inflicted on his Master and friend, but of the 
awful hurt he has inflicted upon himself. We 
cannot believe that he failed either in love or in 
faith. We can imagine that if he had been 
arrested with his Master and brought before 
Caiaphas, and put upon trial, he would have con- 
fessed him as boldly as he had done many a time 
before. We cannot doubt that he would have 
heroically defended him or bravely died with 
him, if such a chance had been offered ; but it is 
true, as has often been observed, that "a great 
deed of heroism is often easier than loyalty in 



78 THE TRANSFIGURING OF THE CROSS. 



small things." A charge preferred by Caiaphas, 
the chief justice in the high court of the nation, 
would have aroused his courage and stiffened 
every fibre of his moral nature ; but the accusa- 
tion of a maid who was nothing but a door- 
keeper threw him off his balance, and he plunged 
into a wrong without weighing the consequences, 
and therefore he was caught in a net of circum- 
stances from which he could not break away. 
So he fell into the very sin which Jesus had 
predicted, and that one which of all others he 
felt himself incapable of committing because of 
the depth and passion of his love. This is 
plainly shown by his repentance. At the moment 
when he was so vehemently denying his Lord, he 
heard the cock crow, announcing the dawning of 
the morning, and as he looked up he met the eye 
of Jesus ; and immediately the whole extent and 
depth of his sin became present to his conscious- 
' ness, and he precipitately rushed forth from the 
court and found a place of solitude where he 
sat down and buried his face in his hands, and 
wept and sobbed with breaking heart. That 
breaking of his heart, that contrition of soul, 
that overflowing fountain of tears, that deep and 
pungent sense of his sin, and its accompanying 
consciousness of the unchanged love of his Mas- 
ter, saved him from despair, and unites him to us 



THE TESTING OF SIMON PETER. 79 



with siicli sympathy that we would fain sit and 
weep with liim, for our own tears involuntarily 
start as we hear through the sobs the self-judg- 
ment of his weakness : " I thought I never could 
do it ; never ! never 1 " 

It seems almost unnecessary to speak of the les- 
son conveyed by this incident. The lesson is in the 
incident. Its analogue is in our own lives and ex- 
periences. Our great peril is just where Peter's 
was, in our weakness, and our weakness consists 
in an overestimate of our own individualism. We 
think more highly of ourselves than we ought 
to think. JMax Nordau says that one of the 
most significant signs of degeneration is ego- 
mania, by which he means that isolation of the 
individual from the community in which self 
interest is the main pursuit of life. A man 
becomes an egoist through a determination to 
be self centred in all things. The result is 
that he expands at his own expense, and grows 
large by absorption without assimilation. This 
excess ruins liim. He overdoes his development, 
and puts so fine an edge upon himself that it 
breaks down when used. This was Peter's fault. 
He had cultivated his self-confidence until his 
self-sufficiency became insufiiciency. He was 
weakest where he thought he was strongest. If 
he had been approached with a bribe, the man 



80 THE TRANSFIGURING OF THE CROSS. 



would hardly have lived to complete the offer. 
Contemplation of wrong toward his master was 
impossible. Wilful deliberate wickedness was 
not in him, and building on this fact he did 
not think that he could be taken unawares. 
The devil understood this. He knew he could 
not take Peter by assault, but he could spring a 
trap, and catch him. 

Many a man has been beaten in this same way. 
One finds himself in a company with which he 
has no sympathy, but it is not easy to get away. 
Circumstances arise in which he thinks it needful 
to compromise himself, either for his own defence 
or for the defence of his friends. He would 
save himself, and yet he yields to that which 
is sure to ruin him, and he goes forth a lost man. 
Priding himself on his honor, he becomes dis- 
honorable. He affiliates with evil, and the evil 
masters him. The hell on the earth and under 
the earth is not occupied so much by monsters of 
depravity and sinners of their own free will, as 
by those respectable men who have whipped the 
devil of expediency around the stump of indirec- 
tion ; by those who have first evaded the truth, 
and afterwards completed the lie with oaths and 
curses. And the pity of it is that such men are 
for the most part naturally noble, high-minded, 
finely sensitive to good impressions, generous, 



THE TESTING OF SIMON PETER, 81 



and quick in their sympathies. They are men 
who accept the sentiment that — 

" Self -reverence, self-knowledge, self-control, 
These three alone lead life to sovereign power." 

And such men fail because their self-reverence 
does not pass on to a reverence for a higher 
being than themselves, and their self-knowledge 
does not lead them to a knowledge of God, and 
their self-control does not open the way to a sur- 
render to the infinite purity. 

Safety, then, lies not in individualism alone, for 
this is a snare and a deceit, but it lies in the con- 
junction of the individual with the world about 
him, and with God, who is over all ; it is in the 
consciousness that we are not our own, but that 
we belong to Him who gave himself for us ; it is iri 
a recognition of the fact that this natural life of 
ours, with all its faculties and powers, is not 
separate from the supernatural, but is allied to 
it, by virtue of our being made in its image and 
constituted in its likeness, by virtue also of that 
divine evolution by which the psychical, which is 
fust, advances to the spiritual, which is beyond it, 
not by leaping a chasm, but by transformation, 
by the application of spiritual law to the natural 
world. In this process there is one thing which 
belongs exclusively to us. We must surrender 

6 



82 THE TRANSFIGURING OF THE CROSS. 



our self-conficlence. We must seek regeneration 
through repentance. The kingdom of heaven is 
made up of repentant souls. It is filled with 
those who have been washed from their sins. Its 
subjects are the participators in a reconciliation, 
and their loyalty is evidenced by the way in 
which they accept the consequences of their 
former weakness and sin. Peter's tears were an 
evidence that though he had denied his master 
through weakness he had not broken faith with 
him. The anguish of his soul was the sign of 
his restoration. Losing his self-confidence, there 
was room now for unmeasured confidence in his 
Lord. Henceforth he would not keep himself, 
but he would be kept by infinite power. Being 
sifted, the chaff fell out and the wheat remained. 
But the fact of his weakness remains also, and is 
perhaps the source of that strength which subse- 
quently enabled him to fulfil his once bold and 
unthinking boast : " Lord, I am ready both to 
go to prison and to die with thee." The whole 
truth of Peter's sin and repenting is well summed 
up in the Folk song of Longfellow. 

" Wounds of the soul, though healed, wiU ache ; 
The reddening scars remain, and make 

Confession. 
Lost innocence returns no more ; 
We are not what we were before 
Transgression. 



THE TESTING OF SIMON PETER. 



But noble souls through dust and heat 
Rise from disaster and defeat 

The stronger, 
And conscious still of the divine 
"Within them, lie on earth supine 

Xo longer. 



IV. 

PILATE'S LACK OF CONVICTION. 



Look in my face ; my name is Might-have-been ; 
I am also called No-more, Too-late, Farewell ; 
Unto thine ear I hold the dead sea-shell 
Cast up thy Life's foam-fretted feet between ; 
Unto thine eyes the glass where that is seen 
Which had Life's form and Love's, but by my spell 
Is now a shaken shadow intolerable, 
Of ultimate things unuttered the frail screen. 

RosETTi, in The House of Life. 

And the sin I impute to each frustrate ghost 
Was, the unlit lamp and the ungirt loin. 

Browning, The Statue and the Bust. 

Once to every man and nation comes the moment to decide, 
In the strife of Truth with Falsehood for tlie good or evil side. 

Lowell. 



lY. 



PILATE'S LACK OF CONVICTION. 



Jesus answered him : Sayest thou this thing of thy- 
self, or did others tell it thee of me ? — John 
xviii. 34. 

^ I ^HIS question is not asked for information, 



but for the double purpose of defence and 
rebuke. In order to understand its full force 
we must review the circumstances that led to its 
propounding. 

Jesus had been arrested and brought before 
the Sanhedrin for trial. His accusers had utterly 
failed to make good their charges, and it seemed 
as if acquittal were inevitable ; but Caiaphas, with 
Sadducean slirewdness, had succeeded in drawing 
from Jesus a confession which sealed liis fate 
without the necessity of witnesses. It was a 
wholly illegal proceeding, but it answered the 
end in view. 

When he saw the whole fabric of evidence 
against Jesus broken down by the irreconcilable 




88 THE TRANSFIGURING OF THE CROSS, 



contradictions of the witnesses, he put Jesus him- 
self upon the stand, and demanded of him under 
oath whether he were the Christ, the Son of God. 
To this Jesus replied in the affirmative, and 
added thereto a solemn prediction taken from 
one of the prophets : " Hereafter ye shall see 
the Son of Man sitting on the right hand of 
power, and coming in the clouds of heaven." 
Caiaphas was astounded by this declaration. He 
believed in a Messiah, and in one who should 
come in the full glory and splendor of the ancient 
predictions ; but when this man who now stood 
before him, identified himself with this prophecy, 
it appeared nothing less than the worst and most 
presumptuous blasphemy. There was then no 
acting of a part, but a real and genuine expres- 
sion of abhorrence and fear when he rent his 
clothes and cried out, " He hath spoken blas- 
phemy ; what further need have we of witnesses ? 
behold now ye have heard his blasphemy ; what 
think ye ? " And when the whole Sanhedrin, 
without waiting for the formality of a ballot, 
gave in their verdict by acclamation : " He is 
worthy of death," they did it in full sympatlry 
with Caiaphas, and without one particle of com- 
punction for the failure to convict him on the 
testimony of witnesses whom they had sum- 
moned. To us the whole procedure was an out- 



PILATE'S LACK OF CONVICTION. 89 



rage. We know that the court was prejudiced, 
and that before its assembling the death of Jesus 
had been determined upon. It was for this that 
the Sanhedrin had made arrangements with the 
traitor, and it was for this that they had brought 
Jesus before Annas for a preliminary examination, 
an act wholly unlawful ; it was for this that they 
had convened at an unusual hour in the morn- 
ing, and had rushed the trial through, without 
according to the prisoner the right of an advocate 
and defender. From the beginning they had 
been urged by an unreasonable hate, and there- 
fore this utterance of their verdict, although the 
expression of a sincere comdction, is not free 
from the guilt which is attached to the whole 
proceedings. The man before them was inno- 
cent, and the crowning sin for which they are 
condemned is that they hated liim without a 
cause. 

But the verdict was no sooner reached than 
they were met by the humiliating fact of their 
inability to execute it. The case must be car- 
ried to the higher court of Pilate, and this must 
be done immediately. The Sanhedrin knew well 
the temper of the people. They knew that 
Jesus had a tremendous influence throughout 
Galilee, and that even in Judaea there were many 
who would rush to save him because of the won- 



90 THE TRANSFIGURING OF THE CROSS, 



derful works which he had wrought, and the 
great consideration which he had shown to the 
poor and the outcast and the despised. Jerusa- 
lem at this time was full of such people who had 
come there to attend the feast. If these should 
take a notion to deliver him, their condemnation 
would amount to nothing. It was necessary, 
therefore, that he should at once be brought 
before Pilate, and if he could only be persuaded 
to pronounce sentence upon him, the way would 
be clear. The people would certainly go back 
on a Messiah who could not save himself from 
the power of a Gentile judge. So Jesus was 
brought before the governor. 

But now a strange difficulty presented itself. 
The charge on which they had convicted him 
was that he called himself a son of God. But 
such a charge as this would have been ineffective 
before a Roman tribunal. Paganism was too 
much accustomed to the idea of sons of God, and 
godlike men, to account it a crime that any man 
should make such a claim either for himself or 
for others. Had they brought this accusation, 
Pilate would have answered : This charge is 
not within my jurisdiction. Rome tolerates all 
religions, and does not presume to interfere with 
any man's theology. Rome recognizes all the 
gods, but does not believe in the supremacy of 



PILATE'S LACK OF CONVICTION. 



91 



any. Universal truth is a fiction, but truth may 
be particular and local, and as such it has its 
uses. Let every man be persuaded in his own 
mind. This case is accordingly ruled out of 
court." 

The priests were shrewd enough to perceive 
this attitude of Pilate, and accordingly, w^hen 
they bring Jesus before him, they make a change 
in their accusation. At first they simply demand 
that he shall confirm the sentence which they 
have pronounced, and put it into execution. 
He demands what crime the accused is guilty 
of. They reply, "If he were not a male- 
factor, we would not have delivered him up to 
thee." But Pilate is suspicious. It is a strange 
thing for the Jews to deliver one of their own 
number to the Roman authority. Ordinarily they 
would go any length to rescue a man who had 
defied the Roman power, and set himself in oppo- 
sition to its law. They were malcontents, plot- 
ters of rebellion, instigators of revolt, and 
sympathizers with conspirators and assassins. 
Pilate knew this; he was perfectly assured in 
his own mind that not one of those men who 
appeared before him was impelled by any feeling 
of loyalty to the Roman government, or aroused 
by any sentiment of friendship toward him as 
the governor. Hence he contemptuously re- 



92 THE TRANSFIGURING OF THE CROSS. 



ferred the matter back to them. " Take ye him 
and judge him according to your law." Pilate 
is irritated, and he has cause for it. Here are 
these men trying to force him to take sides in a 
theological quarrel, and they manifest their cats- 
paw intention in a most disagreeable way. They 
have forced Jesus to enter the hall of judgment, 
but they will not themselves go in because of 
defilement. They cannot eat the passover if 
they should do this. So they force Pilate to 
come out to them. Indirectly, and not less 
surely, the Roman government is thus insulted 
by them, and all the while they are pretending 
an anxiety to do nothing contrary to the law. 
They say, "It is not lawful for us to put any 
man to death." Yet they had repeatedly con- 
spired to assassinate this man. They had 
hounded his footsteps, sought to take him by 
surprise, and had stooped at last to bribery that 
they might get him in their hands. Their pre- 
tence of carefulness for the law was only a 
shrewd device to get Pilate into difficulty and 
make him the medium of their murderous pur- 
pose. Hence they add the charge that Jesus has 
set up a claim as King of the Jews. This con- 
verts the accusation into a political offence. Of 
this, Pilate is bound to take cognizance. But 
instead of demanding from the accusers a reason 



PILATE'S LACK OF CONVICTION. 



93 



for their charge, and proof of it, he goes back to 
Jesus and asks him : " Art thou the King of the 
Jews ? " This question discloses the character 
of the governor, and Jesus, with that calm, clear, 
pungent incisiveness which always marks his 
moral judgment, and compels others to sit in 
judgment upon themselves, makes this demand 
in reply : " Sayest thou this thing of thyself, or 
did others tell it thee of me ? " The meaning of 
this is plain. " You are the Roman governor, the 
judge appointed by authority to judge right- 
eously, and administer the law impartially, and 
now are you willing to be the instrument of men 
for the carrying out of purposes which you know 
are wrong? Have you no convictions of your 
own, no settled policy on which you can stand ? 
Are you here to investigate and find out the 
truth of things for yourself, or are you merely 
the mouthpiece of men who hate me?" 

The question thus interpreted shows the insight 
of Jesus. It opens before us the real character 
of Pilate, and shows his attitude toward the 
truth. 

At first he attempts to avoid the home thrust. 
He asks with scorn, " Am I a Jew ? What have 
I to do with the question anyway ? Your own 
nation and your chief priests have delivered you 
unto me. What have you done that they should 



94 THE TRANSFIGURING OF THE CROSS. 



thus seek your destruction ? " Then Jesus, un- 
willing to leave Pilate with any excuse whatever, 
unfolds to him the fundamental principle of his 
kingship : " My kingdom is not of this world ; 
if my kingdom were of this world, then would 
my servants fight, that I should not be delivered 
to the Jews, but now my kingdom is not from 
hence." To Pilate this was a very harmless 
declaration; he saw no rebellion in it, and no 
opposition to regularly constituted authority. So 
he merely answers, " Thou art a king, then ? " 
To this Jesus replies, "Thou sayest it; to this 
end was I born, and for this cause came I into 
the world, that I should bear witness of the 
truth. Every one that is of the truth heareth my 
voice." But Pilate treats this answer with com- 
plete indifference. He asks, " What is truth ? " 
To that question he thinks no answer can be 
given. If Jesus claims to be a king in the 
kingdom of truth, he has no more to do with it 
than if he should claim to be the king of the 
moon. 

Then he goes out once more to the Jews, and 
announces his first verdict : " I find no fault in 
this man at all." That is his verdict to the end ; 
and yet he finally delivers Jesus to the Jews to 
be crucified. 

Now, there are many points for consideration 



PILATE'S LACK OF CONVICTION. 95 



here, but the one to which I wish to call your 
attention specifically is the particular defect in 
the character of Pilate. I hold that man blame- 
less, wdio, having no opportunity of knowledge, 
and no means of investigation, maintains a neutral 
attitude. It is no crime to be ignorant of matters 
beyond our attainment. The blind man is not a 
sinner because he cannot see, and the deaf man 
is not a wretch because he cannot hear. Men 
without a knowledge of the gospel will never be 
judged by the gospel. The non-existence of any 
faculty is sufficient excuse for not exercising it. 
These I think are self-evident truths. Common 
sense never disputes them. But the presentation 
of an opportunity changes all this. Responsi- 
bility is measured not by Avhat we know, but by 
what we ought to know. This is a very heavy 
burden ; but society lays it upon every one to the 
end that it may have security, and that the foun- 
dations of justice be not undermined. So we 
say that ignorance of the law is no excuse for 
crime, since it is the business of every man to 
know what the law is. Hence, whatever we do has 
in it an element of personal responsibility. This 
element, which at first seems antagonistic to soci- 
etary principles, is, in fact, essential to their very 
existence. We cannot bear the burden of another, 
unless we bear our own burdens. If we put the 



96 THE TRANSFIGURING OF THE CROSS. 



blame of an act of evil upon another, we only 
weaken ourselves as a link in the chain of human 
society, but that makes the chain weak. It re- 
duces the average of goodness. The thing to be 
done is to take the responsibility of the act, and 
purge ourselves from its evil, and then society 
wall not suffer. The whole theory of substitu- 
tionary penalties tends toward this elimination 
of the personal element in guilt, and in so far 
breaks down the moral safeguard of society. If 
we can lay our sins on another, we shall soon 
think only of a transferrence of the penalty, and, 
once relieved of that, w^e shall no longer think 
about the guilt of them. Now it was to bring 
Pilate to a true sense of his personal responsi- 
bility that Jesus forced him to consider what he 
w^as saying when he asked the question: "Art 
thou the king of the Jews ? " Pilate was deter- 
mined to dodge the issue. He did not want to 
displease the Jews, and he did not want to cru- 
cify the innocent man who stood before him. 
He was irresolute, and drawn hither and thither 
by conflicting self-interests. He wished to be 
neutral in the affair, not because he was averse 
to shedding blood, but because he did not wish 
liis own position to be put in peril. He was by 
nature insolent, brutal, rapacious, and cruel. He 
hated the Jews, and was ready to do anything to 



PILATE'S LACK OF COXVICTIOX. 



'97 



annoy them, but he was afraid of them. He 
knew there were hundreds of desperate men in the 
city at that very time who carried a dagger con- 
cealed beneath their cloaks which they were 
thirsting to wet in his heart's blood. They were 
in the pay of the men who were clamoring for 
the blood of Jesus ; and Pilate perceived that the 
design to make liim the executioner of Jesus was 
a part of the plan to bring the Roman govern- 
ment into greater contempt, and arouse against it 
a greater execration. The chief priests were aim- 
ing to lay the entire responsibility of the death of 
Jesus upon the governor, so that they would be 
able to say if the need arose : " The Roman did 
it." "It was he who crucified the Messiah." 
Caiaphas had himself announced that this was a 
matter of expediency. It was for the benefit of 
the J e wish nation that he insisted upon tlie death 
of Jesus by Roman hands. Pilate was therefore 
driven between Scylla and Charybdis. To cru- 
cify Jesus would be sure to help the nation whom 
he hated. Not to crucify him would be the ruin 
of himself. Thus the whole question centred 
about liimself, and the lawfulness or unlawful- 
ness, the right or the wrong of it, played no part in 
his mind. The pressure was terrible, and there 
seemed to be no escape from its cursed weight. 
In this dilemma Jesus came to the rescue. He 
7 



98 THE TRANSFIGURING OF THE CROSS. 



pointed out the only means by which Pilate 
could avert the threatened disaster. He wanted 
him to act as a free man. He presented to him 
an opportunity of knowing exactly what he was 
doing. Jesus stood there for investigation. The 
Roman had power to summon witnesses. He 
knew that the accused had the right of defence. 
That was a right guaranteed by centuries of cus- 
tom, and incorporated in the law. The public 
sentiment was overwhelmingly in favor of a fair 
trial. The course of legal procedure, though 
marked by severity, had never been marred by 
injustice. But the course of the Jews in this 
case was directly contrary to all this. They had 
brought a prisoner before him and demanded that 
he should pass sentence of death upon him from 
an ex parte standpoint. They insisted that Pilate 
should execute him without a trial. The Roman 
idea of justice was thus put to scorn. Even Ro- 
man forms were to be dispensed with, and the 
decree of death was to be rendered without pass- 
ing upon the question of guilt. Now, Jesus really 
sought to save Pilate from this humiliation. He 
did not present an argument in his own behalf, 
but he gave Pilate a chance to take the matter 
in his own hands, and to appeal to the law. 
That question : " Sayest thou this thing of thy- 
self, or did others tell it thee of me ? " was the 



PILATE'S LACK OF CONVICTION. 



99 



means which Jesus took of forcing upon Pilate 
the full and unsharable responsibility of his po- 
sition. It suggested not only his right but his 
paramount duty to form an opinion for himself. 
He had entered upon the trial. The prosecu- 
tion had presented its case. The defence had 
not been heard from. There were witnesses 
without number, all the way from the poor and 
distressed people whom he had helped, up to Nic- 
odemus, one of the Sanhedrin. There were the 
disciples of Jesus, now in hiding, but who would 
readily come forward if assurance were given 
them that they could speak freely of their Mas- 
ter. There were Koman centurions, and other 
officers of Csesar's household, who would gladly 
give their evidence if an opportunity were 
afforded them. It was Pilate's business as a 
judge to see to it that both sides were fairly 
presented. He had authority. One word from 
him, and the whole police force of Jerusalem 
would have hastened to bring in from every 
quarter the witnesses for the defence. That 
act w^ould haA-e taken him from his perilous posi- 
tion between Scylla and Charybdis, and enabled 
him to stand forth in dignity and honor. It 
would not have relieved him from all danger, but 
it would have made danger and honor companions. 
It would have been an immense triumph for him 



100 THE TRANSFIGURING OF THE CROSS. 



after investigating the meaning of that claim of 
Jesus concerning kingship to have gone before 
the chief priests and said : " This man is no politi- 
cal insubordinate, no enemy of Csesar, but a man 
endowed with a kingly spirit, high minded and 
noble, pure and true. The Roman government 
can ask for no better citizens than those who 
follow him. Instead of a cross, he deserves the 
highest place in your synagogue, the greatest 
honor it is in your power to bestow. I therefore 
acquit him and deliver him to freedom. Let him 
go where he will, and see ye to it that no harm 
befalls him." 

Such is the logical result had Pilate taken 
advantage of the suggestion of Jesus, and deter- 
mined that in the matter of the charges against 
him he would investigate and speak for himself. 
But we know that the suggestion was fruitless. 
Pilate was not up to that standard. He was even 
lower than his environment. He was dominated 
by influences which had made him an invertebrate. 
The old Roman might and glory and sense of 
honor had departed, and from the palace of 
Tiberius to the slums of the proletariat there 
was nothing which could remind one of the 
days when heroic men of stalwart strength 
and imperial faith dared ask, like the brave 
Horatius : — 



PILATE'S LACK OF CONVICTION. 101 



'* How can man die better than facing fearful odds 
For the ashes of his fathers and the temples of his gods ? " 

That spirit had become extinct. Even its fossils 
were hidden. Rome ruled all realms, but all her 
decrees were ratified in corruption. Her people 
believed everjtliing and they believed nothing. 
There was nothing sacred in religion, nothing 
sacred in human life. Morality was unknown. 
Over the whole Roman world rested an atmos- 
phere of doubt and despair. Since the days of 
the first Csesar and of Brutus there had arisen 
no man of authority who sought to rule his own 
spirit. Everywhere an inordinate selfishness gave 
itself free rein and rushed on with laughter to its 
ruin. Pilate breathed this atmosphere, and shared 
this contempt for virtue. He was a man without 
con^-ictions, for he looked upon the possession 
of truth as a fiction. He had no sense of obliga- 
tion. Spiritual knowledge was to him only a 
phantom. He had come to regard pliilosophy and 
religion as the occupation of fools. He was 
steeped in a materialistic cynicism. The only 
question of importance to him was how he might 
retain his power, acquire more, and avoid diffi- 
culty. That made him willing to take another 
man's word on a subject which his office required 
him to investigate for himself. It made no dif- 
ference to liim that an innocent man's life was at 



102 THE TRANSFIGURING OF THE CROSS. 



stake. A human life was nothing; he would 
take it or preserve it according as it hindered or 
helped him in his personal pleasui'e. He could 
not understand why a theological question should 
arouse hatred. So the Jews pressing fiercely for 
the death of Jesus presented a problem which he 
had not the capacity to undertake. This stirred 
his wrath. Why should he be compelled to listen 
to their disputes, and why should he on the other 
hand be forced to make an effort to understand 
them ? To avoid the difficulty he offers a compro- 
mise. He appeals to the people. "See, I give 
you your choice : Whom shall I release unto you, 
this man or Bar abbas ; your king who has come to 
save you, or the robber who would destroy you? " 
The people, instigated by the chief priests, cry 
out: "Not this man, but Barabbas." Thus did 
Pilate lose the one chance of doing right and main- 
taining his dignity. He threw away the right of 
judgeship when he made that offer to the people. 

But that offer was the result of his lack of con- 
viction. He put truth and falsehood into the 
same scale, and reckoned them as of equal value. 
Barabbas and Jesus were alike in his estimation. 
That estimation gives us the measure of his 
character. When you see him setting up such a 
choice, you become fully conscious of his inferior- 
ity. You begin to have some respect for the 



PILATE'S LACK OF COXVICTION. 103 



persistent hate which is so inflexibly true to its 
aim in the passion of Caiaphas ; but you regard 
with contempt the man who suffers himself to be 
driven and- whipped into consenting unto an act 
which he knows is flagrant injustice. So all the 
succeeding acts in the tragedy, — the scourging 
of the man, his array in the purple robe, and 
Pilate's ostentatious washing of his hands, — 
become additional reasons for putting upon this 
Roman governor the scorn of scorn, the contempt 
that is too deep to express itself in hate. 

Now I would have you mark once more the 
beginning of tliis self -degradation. Jesus is led 
to an ignominious death, but no ignominy rests 
upon him. You condemn with unsparing severity 
the malice, cruelty, and injustice of the Jews, but 
you do not bring them into your contempt. The 
ignominy, the disgrace, the scorn which fills yoiu' 
hearts and minds is visited alone upon this man, 
who suffered all this injustice to be done because 
of his weakness, his vacillation, his lack of having 
convictions. On the face of it, it seems a little 
thing to refuse to take advantage of an opportu- 
nity of knowing the truth. Sometimes such a loss 
comes through thoughtlessness, sometimes through 
an unwillingness to put ourselves out a little for 
the purpose, sometimes because we fear that the 
truth may be a little unpleasant ; but no matter 



104 THE TRANSFIGURING OF THE CROSS. 

from what cause it arises, the thing itself is a 
shirking of responsibility, and the end of that is 
sure to be a crucifixion of the truth. I am not one 
of those who count sincerity as the sum of all 
virtues, for I know that there may be sincerity 
in the most flagitious persecution ; but I say that 
there can be no real substantial virtue without 
sincerity, and I think I am right in saying that 
the subtlest form which evil is taking in society 
to-day is this disposition to shirk responsibility. 
The laissez-faire element is all-pervasive. It 
penetrates politics, education, and religion. Its 
atmosphere shrouds with its lethal influence our 
homes, our churches, and our municipalities. 
We have a deadly conservatism which shrinks 
from knowing and speaking the truth. We are 
not willing to examine our securities. We put 
our trust in what was written and done centuries 
ago, and we do not wish those things to be dis- 
turbed lest we ourselves should be disturbed. 
But, my friends, we are crjdng Peace ! Peace ! 
when there is no peace. The truth is in our 
midst, and is on trial. Its hands are bound, its 
feet are manacled, its robes are torn, its words are 
falsified and distorted; but it boldly challenges 
every man to a true, independent, and personal 
judgment. It summons every man to a full and 
complete investigation. Its demand may be re- 



PILATE'S LACK OF CONVICTION. 105 



fused and it may be sent to Calvary, but persecu- 
tion cannot crush it, and death cannot silence its 
voice. " Three religions," says Principal Fair- 
bairn, " met in the judgment hall of Pilate. Two 
were of the past, one was of the future." The 
two unlike in form were alike in spirit. Both 
were unreal, their vitality exhausted, their ancient 
beauty wasted away, and their moral power 
broken and crushed by a vain ceremonialism. 
Jehovah and Jupiter had alike been driven out 
of their respective temples, and the sacred places 
had been turned into houses of merchandise and 
dens of thieves. The Jewish faith, once a mighty 
power for righteousness, and the Roman faith, 
once the inspiration to heroic lives and magnifi- 
cent deeds, had both sunk to the low level of an 
empty form, and Jesus, a living spirit, sublime in 
his ideals, and infinitely grand in the vigor of his 
conceptions and supreme in the strength of his 
convictions, stood between them and offered sal- 
vation to the one and newness of life to the other. 
Both rejected him, and of both the world records 
this verdict. The one was consumed by hate, the 
other perished through impotence. 

But the new faith, the religion represented in 
a perfect humanity, survives yet and is at work in 
the world ; and although it still bears the marks 
of Calvary, it holds forth promises of redemption. 



106 THE TRANSFIGURING OF THE CROSS. 



and appeals with confidence to the future, in vir- 
tue of its ever present helpfuhiess and its most 
reasonable hopes. 

The most practical word in conclusion is this : 
The religion of Jesus is before you. You have 
heard many things said about it. The Gospel 
message has, in one way and another, come to 
your ears. This hearing involves you in the 
responsibility of a decision. You must come to 
some opinion concerning it, you must make up 
your mind. The question is not what does the 
church think, or what do the creeds affirm, but 
what do you think, and what are the grounds of 
your thinking ? The investigation required is 
not long, but it is important. 

There are a hundred side issues, but the main 
issue is simple, plain, and visible to any man that 
has eyes for seeing. Do you accept Jesus as the 
king of the kingdom of spiritual truth? Are 
you ready to be a subject of that kingdom? 
Some of you have answered this in the affirma- 
tive. You have made your confession. What 
force has it in your daily life ? How deep is the 
conviction ? Press the question home to your 
souls, and answer it in the light of the obliga- 
tions that are resting upon you : Sayest thou this 
thing of thyself, or did another tell it thee of 
me ? Are you acting on your own responsibility, 



PILATE'S LACK OF CONVICTION. 107 



as men and women who know in whom they 
believe ; or are you shirking your responsibility, 
and laying the blame of your inactivity on other 
shoulders? If so, do you think you can, like 
Pilate, wash your hands and say, I am inno- 
cent," and expect that plea to be accepted before 
the Court of Eternal Truth ? 



V. 

THE GREAT QUESTION. 



I AM the Way, the Truth, and the Life. — John xiv. 6. 



The law of truth was in his mouth. — Mal. ii. 6. 

Meantime, whilst the door of the temple stands open 
night and day before every man, and the oracles of this 
truth cease never, it is guarded by one stern condition ; 
this, namely : it is an intuition ; it cannot be received at 
second hand. Truly speaking, it is not instruction but 
provocation that I can receive from another soul. What 
he announces I must find true in me or reject, and on his 
word, or as his second, I can accept nothing. On the con- 
trary, the absence of this primary faith is the presence of 
degradation. As is the flood so is the ebb. Let this faith 
depart, and the very words it spake, and the things it 
made, become false and hurtful. Then falls the church, 
the state, art, letters, life. — Emerson. 

Nothing is so grand as Truth, nothing so forcible, noth- 
ing so novel. — Landor. 



V. 



THE GREAT QUESTION. 

JEvevy one that is of the truth heareth my voice. 
Pilate saith unto him : What is truth ? — John 
xviii. 37. 

THEEE are some words, which when uttered 
in speech or seen on the printed page are 
too profound in meaning for immediate and full 
comprehension. They imply yast pre-supposi- 
tions and extensive knowledge. They present 
objects of thought to our consciousness, but only 
in dim shadowy outline and fleeting surface. 
They rush by like a mighty train mth thunder- 
ing swiftness, and we can no more take in their 
meaning than we can hold in detailed and pre- 
cise vision the whirling wheels, or the faces of 
the passengers at the car windows. Or they are 
like those events which we sometimes witness, 
and of which we say : " The action was swifter 
than any description," or, " It takes more time to 
tell it than it took to do it." By this we simply 



112 THE TRANSFIGURING OF THE CROSS. 

mean that our perception, though real, was not 
realized until subsequent reflection developed it. 

Such words are science, art, religion, evolution, 
philosophy, humanity, justice, love, and hundreds 
of others common enough in our vocabulary, and 
in the speech of the world. These words make 
a distinct impression on our minds ; but they are 
not and cannot be comprehended until reflection 
presents them in detail. This will be apparent 
if you stop to think for a moment of the differ- 
ence in degree which such a word as science 
makes upon the mind of a child when he hears 
it, and on the mind of a highly educated man. 
They both know the meaning of the term, and 
both get a flash-light view of it when it is spoken ; 
but in the one case a few pages of a primer on 
botany or zoology or natural philosophy mil 
cover subsequent reflection, while in the other 
case subsequent reflection will take the man 
through whole libraries and unnumbered exper- 
iments and the most extensive investigatioUo 
Now I might say that the whole of education 
consists in getting the power to know what we 
see, and to understand what we hear. This is 
certainly true of religious education. The work 
of Jesus as a teacher was founded on the condi- 
tion : " He that hath eyes to see let him see, and 
he that hath ears to hear let him hear." In his 



THE GREAT QUESTION. 113 

instruction lie was ever using words that implied 
some power of insight and some previous knowl- 
edge. He did not expect men to understand 
him unless they made an effort to catch his mean- 
ing. Inattentive, thoughtless listeners never 
knew what he was talking about. " Without a 
parable spake he not unto them." Why? Be- 
cause he knew that if his speech did not cause 
some pain, some real hardship of the brain, or 
-some tugging at the heart, all the pleasure which 
a man might receive from it would be of no 
advantage whatever. Hence, even in his most 
original teaching he never sought to make things 
easy, but only to make them plain. He measured 
the capacity of men, and gave them as much as 
they could bear. When people complained that 
they did not understand him, he sometimes re- 
peated his message, but he never diluted it. I 
suppose he thought that the words which he used 
were the best possible words for conveying his 
idea, and if men would only seek to understand 
them they Avould find that they were, after all, 
the simplest. When the Rabbi Nicodemus told 
him that he was propounding enigmas, and 
querulously demanded, "How can these things 
be ? " Jesus replied : " Verily I say unto thee. 
We speak that we do know and testify to that 
we have seen, and ye receive not orn* witness. If 

8 



114 THE TRANSFIGURING OF THE CROSS. 



I have told you earthly things, such as are 
within your material comprehension, and ye be- 
lieve not, how shall ye believe if I tell you 
heavenly things, such as are within your spiritual 
understanding ? " 

This fairly represents the general attitude of 
Jesus as a teacher and preacher of spiritual truths. 
He assumed that men could take if they would 
what he gave them. He did not try to adapt him- 
self to men who suffered their wits to go wool- 
gathering while he was talking. He demanded 
close and persistent attention, because his message 
was worthy of it, and he himself was qualified to 
give it. This was the best compliment he could 
possibly pay his hearers. He approached them on 
the best and highest side of their nature. He 
talked about great and grand things, assuming 
that they themselves were great enough to appre- 
ciate them. He told them of mysteries, not to 
perplex them but to quicken their power of per- 
ception. "There is nothing covered," he said, 
that shall not be revealed to you, and nothing 
hid that shall not be known to you; what ye 
have spoken in darkness shall be heard in light, 
and that which ye have spoken in the secret ear 
shall be proclaimed on the housetops." I know 
that another meaning has been put upon this ; but 
its real significance is that they who seek shall 



THE GREAT QUESTION. 



115 



surely find, that even the deep things of God are 
not beyond the survey of him who will use the 
faculties with which he is endowed. This is the 
secret of the power of Jesus as a teacher. Men 
were stimulated, encouraged, and strengthened 
in their minds by the task that he put upon them, 
and they went forth as thinkers to preach a gos- 
pel which challenged the highest intellect and 
the deepest heart of the world. 

One of the great words of this Fourth gos- 
pel is Truth, It is one of those significant 
words which imply vastly more than can be 
measured by any one mind. Starting from the 
lowest conception of it as simple veracity, we 
move on in our contemplation of it until we 
find it embracing a boundless realm in which 
are hid all the treasures of knowledge in all 
worlds and all ages. Viewed in one light it 
consists of individual facts innumerable, both 
revealed and unrevealed ; viewed in another light 
it is an eternal principle by which the value of 
all things, visible and invisible, is tested. When 
we utter the word a distinct object is presented 
to our minds, but nothing short of long and deep 
reflection can give us any adequate conception of 
what it is. We stop and think : Why, truth is a 
very common thing. Men have been speaking it 
for ages ; it is written in the ten thousand times 



116 THE TRANSFIGURING OF THE CROSS. 

ten thousand books of all nations, and engraved 
on nit)numents and obelisks and mausoleums, 
and walls of stone and brick, from the gray dawn 
of the world's life up to the present hour ; it is 
visible in architecture and painting and sculp- 
ture, and parks and gardens, and in public works 
of all kinds ; it is the speech of philosophers and 
poets and men of science ; it was with the Eter- 
nal from the beginning, displaying itself in the 
works of his hands, in the starry heavens, in the 
evolution of earth, in the varied beauty and util- 
ity of Nature's productions ; it is back of every 
system of law, and is wrought into every religion, 
and is the foundation upon which stands the 
whole fabric of social life, in the family, the 
church, and the state ; it transcends the material 
and dwells in the supersensuous realm of spirit ; 
and defying death it proclaims itself the inhabi- 
tant of an unending kingdom. For it men have 
suffered, toiled, and died in torture and ignomini- 
ous shame, and other men, heedless of the warn- 
ing, defiant of the power of evil, have gone on 
choosing it and loving it unto the end. 

" Careless seems the great avenger ; history's pages but 
record 

One death grapple in the darkness 'twixt old systems and 
the Word ; 

Truth forever on the scaffold, Wrong forever on the 
throne, 



THE GREAT QUESTION. 



117 



Yet that scaffold sways the future and beliiiid the dim 
unkBO\Yu, 

Staiideth God \Yithin the shadow keeping watch above his 
own." 

But when Jesus used this word did he put as 
much into it as this ? I think he did, and much 
more also, yet not exactly in this way. Signifi- 
cant as the meaning of it is in his mouth, there 
is one thing which he connected with it that gave 
it a deeper meaning than anything which I have 
touched upon. In his mind truth was nothing ex- 
cept so far as it was manifested in life. He never 
discussed trutli in the abstract. Very- rarely did 
he attempt to prove things in any other w^ay than 
by an appeal to experience. Hence his idea of 
truth was related to persons. Of himself he 
said, " I am the truth." When Pilate questioned 
him concerning his kingdom, he said ; He tliat 
heareth my^ voice is of the truth ; " that is, the 
truth is manifested in persons who hear my voice, 
and hearing, accept me personally. This ex- 
plains Pilate's reply : " What is truth ? " Pilate 
was not asking for information, nor was he speak- 
ing in a jesting spirit. In the first place, he did 
not believe that any information could be given 
liim on that subject ; and in the second place, he 
was too angry with the Jews and too cowardly 
in spirit to treat anything connected with the 



118 THE TRANSFIGURING OF THE CROSS. 



affair in a light manner. Coward and moral 
invertebrate as he was, he had no capacity 
for jesting. What then was his attitude ? The 
Roman life of that day will answer this question. 
The common people were religious. They had 
maintained and extended the ancient belief in the 
gods. They were continually worshipping them. 
They believed they had a kind of property right 
in them, and one of the privileges conferred by 
Roman citizenship was the protection by the 
state of the gods of the citizen. The gods of 
Rome, however, were unlike the gods of other 
nations. The Orient worshipped Nature in her 
lowest forms. The gods to whom the people of the 
East offered their sacrifices demanded blood, pol- 
lution, and death. The Greek idealized Nature, 
and worshipped beauty. His religion was full 
of imagination, and accompanied by cheerful 
rites. He never feared his gods, for he was lord 
over them. They were the work of his hands, 
and he could do what he pleased with them. 
Hence while his worship was often impure, it 
was never cruel. The Greeks never persecuted 
for religion's sake. But the religion of Rome 
was different from all this. It was prosaic, ab- 
stract, and utilitarian. It was without legends 
and without poetry. It was purely practical, and 
intended for immediate use. All worship was 



THE GREAT QUESTION. 



119 



regulated by law. The Roman rubric is the most 
complete manual of religious service ever made. 
Every detail is carefully laid down, and must be 
punctiliously observed. But there is no soul in 
the worship, and all expressions of enthusiasm 
are avoided as being equally abhorrent with 
impiety. The religious Roman kept a strict 
account with his gods, always paying just what 
he owed, and never a penny more or less. 

Tliis was the state of religion among the common 
people of Rome at the beginning of the empire. 
But no sooner do we come into the ranks of the 
educated, the wealthy, and the powerful, than we 
find another condition of things. Here unbelief 
prevailed. The wave of scepticism which had 
risen in Greece had swept over Rome and flooded 
it with contempt and scorn of religion, just as the 
brilliant scepticism of France in the last century 
poured its desolating influence over England and 
Germany. When the Roman went to Athens for 
his education he obtained both culture and doubt. 
He joined the Greeks in the theatre in the even- 
ing, and saw them laughing at the comedies of 
Aristophanes making fun of the gods, and the 
next day he visited the temples and saw his 
companions of the night before offering sacrifices 
to the same gods who had so recently been the 
object of their ridicule. In the schools he heard 



120 THE TRANSFIGURING OF THE CROSS. 

questions of philosophy discussed in which the 
boldest unbelief asserted itself with unblushing 
audacity. By the time he had finished his educa- 
tion he had lost all faith, and had come to the con- 
clusion to which the practical character of his na- 
ture inevitably led him, — that there was no such 
thing as truth in any realm beyond the immediate 
perception of his senses. Thus the old creed of 
his fathers was abandoned, and nothing was put 
in its place. When republicanism in Rome gave 
place to imperialism all the rulers of the State 
had abandoned belief in the gods, except so far 
as they might utilize such faith in the promotion 
of their own interests. Csesar was a materialist 
in philosophy and yet a minister of religion. 
Cato in the Roman senate avowed his unbelief, 
and his speech was accepted as a commonplace of 
thought. The poem of Lucretius in which there 
is a denial of God and Providence, and a moral 
order in the universe, and a spiritual nature in 
man, was generally received as a true statement 
of the current opinion among educated men on 
the topics it discussed. For more than three- 
quarters of a century this absence of faith had 
been the companion of all the culture and all the 
influence of the empire, and in that time no man 
had arisen with a voice of authority to proclaim 
any doctrine which appealed to the higher quali- 



THE GREAT QUESTION. 



121 



ties of the soul. Even in tlie realm of philosophy 
thare was not one who deemed any proposition of 
sufficient importance to carry a debate upon it to 
a finish. Epicureanism and Stoicism had their 
conflicts, but they always ended in a drawn battle. 
Of course this made Rome tolerant of all religions, 
because all were alike without foundation, having 
no reason for existence beyond the mere fancy of 
the individual. To every question of morals and 
religion, reaching into the supersensuous sphere, 
the Roman affixed an interrogation mark, or 
answered it with a denial. It was useless, he 
said, to investigate matters that pertained or pro- 
fessed to pertain to life outside of its earthly 
environment. Now Pilate was the cliild of this 
age. He was a product of its indifference, its 
aimlessness, its go-as-you-please philosophies and 
religions. When he asked. What is truth? he 
waited for no answer, because he felt that no 
answer could be given. Truth to him was a 
non ens, a phantom, and he would no more give 
attention to an answer than the scientific man of 
to-day would discuss the theory of phlogiston. To 
his mind all truth and all theories of truth was a 
back number, an out-of-date publication. He 
would give it no more thought than we give the 
contentions of Galileo's opponents on the revolu- 
tion of the earth. 



122 THE TRANSFIGURING OF THE CROSS. 

If one had pressed him with the question he 
would have said : " Why do you insist on boring 
me with such senseless notions? The peasants 
and the common people believe in such things, 
and it is well enough for them. They know no 
better, and it is a harmless occupation for their 
minds, and I do not care to disturb them in it ; 
but for myself I can get no answer to the question 
which is not met by an opposing answer. The 
whole of religion is nonsense. What good does 
it do to pray? Do the gods hear us? No, if 
they exist they have enough to attend to their own 
affairs. Let them take care of the other world, 
and let man take care of this. It is our business 
to govern men, to make other nations subservient 
to our interests, to kee]3 the peace between those 
who are inclined to quarrel, to facilitate com- 
merce and trade, to build good roads and erect 
public buildings, and in general to look out that 
all things are prospering in the state. With 
these things the gods have nothing to do. They 
will not collect our taxes, nor -psij our soldiers, 
nor oversee our laborers. They have never eaten 
at our banquets though we have feasted in their 
honor ; they have never blessed us though we have 
erected temples and shrines for them. In these 
things we have wasted vast sums which might 
better have been put into food and clothing and 



THE GREAT QUESTION, 



123 



shelter for the rabble of beggars that infest our 
streets.'^ This expresses the attitude of the Ro- 
man governor towards that idea which Jesus 
named as the truth. It was the common attitude 
of Roman power. 

Now, we are bound to inquire into the reason 
for this attitude, and we find it in the simple fact 
that in recent Roman history there had been no 
incarnation of truth. Philosophy had given birth 
to bodiless abstractions. The idea of loving the 
truth, of serving it, and dying for it had no ex- 
pression in Roman experience. " There is noth- 
ing certain," says one of the philosophers of the 
period, " save that nothing is certain, and there is 
no more wretched and arrogant being than man." 
With such opinions as this it is not to be expected 
that truth would have any vital relations. It was 
a thing only, and its possession was a matter of 
no moment to the individual. Pilate had no 
capacity for understanding the word of Jesus, 
because of his unbelief in the reality of truth. 
He had never known a man who was willing to 
lose his dinner on behalf of any moral proposition, 
much less one who would imperil his life for such 
a cause. To his eyes Jesus appeared as a harmless 
enthusiast, and his reason for attempting to save 
him was because he did not think any man ought 
to die for the sake of his religion. But even this 



124 THE TRANSFIGURING OF THE CROSS. 



proposition, although it was in accord v/ith Roman 
sentiment, did not arouse him to any act of self- 
sacrifice in its support. His indifference to truth 
made him indifferent to everything in the nature 
of duty. He cared for one thing only, and that 
was to save his own miserable head. To do this 
he bent himself in craven fear before the surging 
wrath of the Jews, and refused to call in the 
means of protecting his prisoner. Only once does 
he show any sign of earnestness in trying to save 
the poor victim who stood before him. This was 
after his wife had sent word to him that she had 
suffered many things in a dream because of this 
righteous man. Men who have abandoned faith 
in the unseen and have surrendered to material- 
ism are of all men the most subject to superstition. 
Pilate is a disbeliever in God and immortality, 
but he thinks there may be something after all 
in the imaginations produced by a disordered 
stomach. That is an intimation of bad luck, a 
prediction of disaster which is to be heeded. So 
he stirs himself, but in his cowardice and fear he 
overdoes the matter, and makes a fatal mistake. 
He puts the case into the hands of the people, and 
so places himself at the mercy of a tumultuous 
mob, which he is wholly unable to restrain. When 
he offers to release either Barabbas or Jesus, he 
surrenders his only and the last chance of saving 



THE GREAT QUESTION. 125 



the latter. But the question comes to us, Why 
does he make such a monstrous proposition ? Be- 
cause as a moral degenerate he sees no difference 
between the two persons on the score of their 
religious views. He knows that the sum of the 
charge against Jesus is that he is the advocate and 
preacher of a doctrine which he summarizes as the 
truth. Barabbas may be a Jew, a believer also 
in a system of truth, but widely divergent from 
that of Jesus. He as a Roman would not punish 
either of them for the views they hold ; and when 
he offers the choice he deliberately puts the 
criminal alongside the good man, and so far as 
their respective attitude toward a higher law is 
concerned treats them as equals. In respect to 
. absolute indifference toward the truth he is con- 
sistent. Thus does he emphasize the utter shame- 
lessness of his nature. 

Now there are some fundamental lessons which 
grow out of this incident. 

The first is the weakness of unbelief in moral 
emergencies. Somehow faith and morals are 
closely connected. Back of every action is a 
motive. That motive rests upon a foundation of 
some sort. It may be an intuitive perception, or 
it may be the conclusion of a process of reasoning. 
This perception or this conclusion has also a his- 
tory. It stands in accord with the universal 



126 THE TRANSFIGURING OF THE CROSS. 



consensus of men, or it is opposed to this. It is 
therefore either good or bad. I am not now say- 
ing that this can always be clearly discerned, for 
we are all of us conscious at times of mixed 
motives, so that we cannot fully decide whether 
a contemplated action is right or wrong. In this 
case help must be called in. But it is safe to 
say in general that the common judgment of 
mankind on moral questions is sufficient for the 
times in which men live. That is to say, the 
common moral judgment of to-day is the right 
judgment for to-day. It follows then that the 
more men believe in these judgments, the more 
they see them as truth, the better Avill they be 
able to act, and the more nearly will they con- 
form to right usages. This consensus of belief 
furnishes a moral authority. It presents a defi- 
nite and clear ideal of what is right. Unbelief is 
simply the negation of this authority. It is an 
elimination of rectitude because it takes away 
the motive to rectitude which is a desire to place 
one's self in harmony with this ideal moral 
authority. The unjust judge in the New T#sta- 
ment story said of himself, " I fear neither God 
nor man." That made him unjust. He had 
forsworn the criterion of justice to which men 
gave in their adherence. That he afterwards 
yielded to a claim of justice was solely owing to 



THE GREAT QUESTION. 



127 



the clamorings of a woman who threatened to 
beat him black and blue if he did not listen 
to her plea. She restored him to faith in her 
powers of persuasion, and so gave him a motive 
for action which he could not very well resist. 

It is true that right action does not always 
accompany belief in the right, but unbelief simply 
leaves one without any impulse whatever. The 
position of such a man is neutral, but neutrality 
on moral questions is often the devil's best ally. 
He who will not stand up and be counted may 
be put down as an enemy to the cause of right- 
eousness, because he is a coward in the service of 
truth. This was Pilate's position all along. He 
was afraid of the Jews, afraid of Jesus, and 
afraid of Tiberius Csesar. If he had had a 
supreme belief in the truth, if he had trusted 
even in the gods of Rome as Horatius trusted to 
them when he fought by the bridge, and when it 
was cut down flung himself, heavy armed as he 
was, into the Tiber, he would have found his 
way out of that perplexity into which the Jews 
plunged him; and whether Jesus had been saved 
or not, he would at least have saved himself from 
the everlasting contempt of men. But his unbe= 
lief affords him no place of refuge, and no shield 
from the storm of the world's scorn. The man 
with no faith is always a weakling. It is useless 



128 THE TRANSFIGURING OF THE CROSS. 



for liim to meet any foe. His spinal column is 
disjointed, and lie can neither walk, nor run, nor 
fly. He can only cringe and crawl. 

In the second place, belief must be joined with 
life. Truth in a person is visible. It is then 
dynamic. It is full of energy. Truth in abstract 
form is like a stream in the fields, beautifying the 
landscape and running on its murmuring way to 
the sea. Men may sing about it and rejoice over 
it, but it is of small practical use. Now take 
that stream and direct its course so that its water 
shall fall upon a wheel. The wheel begins to 
turn, and that turning moves a mighty shaft, and 
now ten thousand wheels are moving, and there 
is a rattling of looms, and a whirling of spindles, 
and a buzzing of pickers, and hundreds of men 
and women and children are at work gathering 
the materials and furnishing the product of a 
mighty industry. This is truth realized in living 
action. It has gone to work in the world, and 
its labor means progress, and life more abundant. 
So when Jesus said : " He that heareth my voice 
is of the truth," he meant the truth which he 
himself exemplified in his life. Life was no 
puzzle to him, and truth was no phantom. He 
has nothing to say of time and chance happening 
to a man. To him all things are ordered and 
sure. Even his ideals are real, tangible, and 



THE GREAT QUESTION. 129 

reachable. He tliat doeth the truth cometh to 
the light. Is a man perplexed, trying to study 
out the meaning of the sphinx ? Let him quit 
that sort of business and give himself up to doing 
what he knows he ought to do. He may not see 
very far at first ; but he can take one step, and 
that one step will guarantee his power of motion. 
It is perfectly marvellous when we come to think 
of it, how little new truth Jesus actually pro- 
claimed, and how much he displayed in his life. 
There is scarcely an utterance of his which did 
not pre-suppose the knowledge of it in the 
hearer. What he did was to make that truth 
evident to the perceptions of men. When he 
said, " Blessed are the meek, and the merciful, 
and the pure in heart," men understood him as 
speaking out of his own experience. There 
stood before them a man who was really and in 
very truth meek, merciful, and pure. When he 
talked about God his Father, he did it as a 
child talks about his father. When he said 
that he came not to do his own will, but the 
will of him that sent him, they who heard him 
felt that they were looking, not upon a theorizer, 
but upon an actual living diplomat from heaven, 
a minister from that court. With him life was 
achievement, and achievement was no proposition 
about truth, but truth itself. 

9 



130 THE TRANSFIGURING OF THE CROSS. 

" What is the pomt where Himself lays stress ? 
Does the precept run, ' Believe in Good, 
In Justice, Truth, now understood 
For the first time ? ' or ' Believe in Me, 
Who lived and died, yet essentially 
Am Lord of Life ? ' " 

This is simply all there is of it. Faith in 
Christ is not a belief in dogmas and doctrines 
about Christ, but it is belief in a person ; and the 
truth of Christ is not what Christianity has said 
concerning him, even with the best intent, but it 
is simply and solely the truth which he lived 
out, and died for and rose again. And, my 
friends, I know of no other way of reaching the 
truth except by following in his footsteps. No 
man ever comes to the truth by having it preached 
to him, nor by reading about it, or by meditating 
upon it. He can never get any good from its 
environment. He must himself be its environ- 
ment. He must act it out. And it must first be 
within in order that it may be without. Like the 
stream of water in the mill, it must pour in on 
the heart, setting that and the intellect and the 
feelings all in motion, that it may turn tlie wheels 
of a divine industry in the kingdom of God. 
There are some people who like Pilate have 
measured all known systems of philosophy, and 
have said that there is nothing in them ; and they 
are quite right, not because philosophy is a bad 



THE GREAT QUESTION. 



131 



tiling, but because it is not a good thing until 
it is transmuted through experience into life'. 
There are others who are in despair and yet have 
not given up the search, but they are sure to 
fail because they are on the wrong scent. To 
them the depth saith, It is not in me," and the 
sea saith, "It is not with me." And still they 
are looking ; but they will never find it until 
they look within. There, beyond all doubt, in the 
moral intuitions of the soul, in the witnessing of 
the Eternal Spirit, is the truth which makes men 
free. Would you know the truth, so much of it 
as is essential to your peace, your happiness, your 
security in this world and in the next? The 
rule is simple, plain, unequivocal. He that 
willeth to do the will of God shall know of the 
doctrine. Action alone verifies the propositions 
of the moral consciousness. Do your duty as' 
God presents it to you, and walk as Jesus walked 
in the actual performance of his obligations, and 
you mil find your path a pathway of light, shin- 
ing more and more mito the perfect day. Aban- 
don this simple principle, and the inevitable 
outcome of that desertion is that you will be a 
moral weakling yielding to the demands of hate, 
and finally giving the word of command which 
sends the truth to the cross. 



VI. 

GUILT DIVINELY MEASURED. 



Who could peruse for the first time those four accounts 
of the great tragedy of the world's history which we 
know too well as a narrative to understand as a fact, with- 
out seeing that the victory of fanaticism was the defeat of 
Rome ? " He that delivered me unto thee hath the greater 
sin." How expressive of the influence of Roman law is it 
that from the moment of hearing those M'ords Pilate 
sought to release his captive ! He recognized his voca- 
tion at that strange excuse for his failure in fulfilling it ; 
he felt that the Roman governor was called on to teach 
the peoples committed to his charge the common element 
of Law. AVhen the cry of the rabble, " If thou let this man 
go, thou art not Caesar's friend," overcame the loyalty of 
the judge, an example was set up for all time of that 
obliteration of the justice of Rome by the weakness or 
the vice of the Romans, which, doubtless, was the most 
familiar aspect of its legal system to its subjects ; but in 
that concession the Roman law had no part ; it was defied, 
not distorted. — Julia Wedgwood, in The Moral Ideal, 



VI. 



GUILT DIVINELY MEASURED. 

Jesus answered, Thou ivouldest have no power at all 
against me, except it ivere given thee from above ; 
therefore he that delivered me unto thee hath the 
greater sin. — John xix. 11. 

THIS saying of Jesus is the occasion of the 
final effort of Pilate to save him from 
death. The author of the Fourth Gospel with 
keen dramatic insight makes this attempt of 
Pilate to do the right thing the climax of his 
endeavor, and with true ethical judgment dis- 
tributes and fixes the responsibility of the crime 
where it belongs. 

We shall see this if we make a brief review of 
the successive steps in the Roman trial. 

After having condemned him in their own court, 
the Jews bring him before the governor and ask 
that their sentence be confirmed. Pilate asks, 
" What evil hath he done ? " They reply with 
the general accusation that he is a criminal. But 
Pilate sees no evidence of this, and bids them 



136 THE TRANSFIGURING OF THE CROSS. 



judge liirn according to their law. This they had 
done, but they could not carry out their sentence 
since the right of capital punishment was wholly 
in the hands of the Romans. Leaving then the 
general accusation, they charge him with sedition 
in making himself King of the Jews. Pilate 
investigates this charge and finds that it amounts 
to nothing more than that the prisoner claims to 
be king in the kingdom of truth, an unknown 
land to the governor. There is no sedition in 
this, for it certainly does not interfere with any 
royal prerogative. But the pressure still contin- 
ues, and Pilate, vacillating between his sense of 
right and his fears, adopts a plan which he hopes 
will be successful. Whether he suggested it 
first or whether it came from the people, we can- 
not tell. According to Mark, the people crowd 
into his presence and demand that the usual favor 
of releasing a prisoner at this time should be 
granted them. Pilate understands this as a 
movement on behalf of Jesus by the people, and 
it may very well have been so, for by this time 
the news of the trial had spread, and as J erusalem 
was full of strangers, many of whom may have 
known Jesus and perhaps have received kind- 
nesses at his hand, it was but natural that they 
should make this effort to save him. Therefore 
when Pilate demands, ''Will ye that I release 



GUILT DIVINELY MEASURED. 



137 



unto you the King of the Jews ? " he hopes for 
an affirmative answer. But Mark tells us that 
the chief priests, anticipating this, stirred up the 
multitude to demand the release of Barabbas. 
Now the meaning of this name Barabbas is " The 
son of the Father," and it is a curious fact that 
in several ancient versions of the Gospel accord- 
ing to Matthew, this man is called Jesus Barab- 
bas, or Jesus the son of the Father. In our ver- 
sion he is called the illustrious Barabbas ; which 
is probably the correct title, although some of the 
most distinguished New Testament scholars sup- 
port the other reading, and make Pilate's ques- 
tion to be according to Matthew : " Shall I release 
unto you Jesus Barabbas, or Jesus the Christ?" 
But apart from the disputed name, it seems like 
the irony of fate that a man known as the son of 
the Father, and acknowledged as a political in- 
stigator of sedition, should be the successful com- 
petitor of Jesus in so momentous and tragical an 
event. Pilate, doubtless, thought that the sim- 
ilarity of name, and also of accusation, would 
only emphasize the contrast between the two, 
and that the people would without hesitation give 
their verdict in favor of the innocent. But in 
appealing to the people his good intention was 
thwarted, and he thus surrendered his best chance 
of liberating his prisoner. Unable to stem the 



138 THE TRANSFIGURING OF THE CROSS. 



tide of popular fury by such a compromise, he 
makes an effort to save the life of Jesus by in- 
flicting upon him such a punishment as might 
arouse a feeling of pity in the hardest heart. 
He commanded that he should be scourged, 
after which the soldiers indulged in a heartless 
and cruel mockery of the victim. They plaited 
a crown of thorns and put it upon his head, and 
arrayed him in a purple robe, and then one troop 
after another marched by and saluted him with 
the contemptuous words : " Hail King of the 
Jews ! " When this had continued for a while, 
Pilate caused him to be led into the presence of 
the chief priests and the people, and pointing to 
him said with a tone of half pity and half con- 
tempt : " Behold the man ! " Tliis is an interjec- 
tional phrase, and the argument of it is in the 
patience and humility with which the sufferer 
bears liis terrible pain. It is as if Pilate had 
said : " Surely you cannot fear a man who is thus 
unable to protect himself from such treatment, 
and there is no room for envy where one is so 
humiliated." But the passion for his death was 
too great to be averted by this sort of an expe- 
dient. The cry that fills the air at that sight is 
one of madness, " Crucify him ! crucify him ! " 
Pilate's reply is a refusal. " Take him and 
crucify him yourselves; for I find no fault in 



GUILT DIVINELY MEASURED. 139 



him." This they had no right to do, and even 
if they might have done it, how would it appear 
in the face of that declaration by the governor : 
"I find no fault in him" ? But they are not to 
be balked by the reluctance of Pilate. They 
mean to diive him to do the disagreeable thing 
and to make him take the responsibility therefor. 
They accordingly bring forth the charge which 
they had made in their own tribunal, and they 
do it with an assumption of strength and appear- 
ance of haughtiness that is in marked contrast to 
the weakness of the governor. " We," they say, 
''have a law, and by our law he ought to die, 
because he made himself a son of God." 

All along Pilate had been afraid. He was 
afraid of the Jews, he was afraid of his master 
Tiberius, but now he was more afraid than ever. 
There was something in the presence of Jesus 
wliich had aroused in him a strange presentiment. 
He was unlike any man he had ever seen. 
Through all this trial Jesus had manifested a 
dignity and a majesty wliich no humiliation 
could impair. He had not answered a single 
charge which had been made against him, and 
yet every word he had uttered, and every action, 
and even his silence was a complete refutation of 
criminal act or intent. Pilate was an unbeliever 
in the gods, and yet, like all men who are dis- 



140 THE TRANSFIGURING OF THE CROSS. 



posed to reject belief in the Higher powers, he 
had a vague notion that they might exist after 
all. What then if this last charge should be 
true? What if this man whom he had igno- 
miniously scourged and mocked was in reality a 
god in disguise ? The Roman fables told of such 
things, but here there might be no fable at all. 
This man had shown qualities that certainly 
placed him outside the rank of ordinary men, and 
was this not a good reason for believing that he 
might be a supernatural being? With such 
questions in his mind, Pilate determined to look 
into the matter further. So once more he went 
into the Pretorium and demanded of Jesus, 
"Whence art thou?" But Jesus was silent. 
Why ? Because a direct answer to a man of 
such indecision would have been either mislead- 
ing or unintelligible, and it was not the purpose 
of Jesus to satisfy a superstition. What Pilate 
needed was not revelation, but reflection on the 
facts set before him. Besides, the question had 
nothing whatever to do with the case. Pilate 
was a judge, and the only matter before him was 
to see that justice was done. He had already in 
words acquitted his prisoner. He had affirmed 
that he found no fault in him. He was perfectly 
satisfied that Jesus was not a malefactor, nor a 
disturber of the peace of the realm, nor a rival 



GUILT DIVINELY MEASURED. 141 



king. Every accusation made against him had 
fallen, and now it made no difference where 
Jesns came from, his immediate liberation was 
Pilate's one and only duty. But when a man is 
unwilling to do his duty, and material things are 
influencing and urging him to do the thing that 
is not his duty, that is, to go against his con- 
science, he will turn every way to see if he can- 
not find a chance to escape his responsibility. 
One may succeed for a while in dodging an issue, 
but the issue will not down, and eventually it 
will drive the man into a corner. 

The silence of Jesus forces this reflection upon 
Pilate, and he gives angry utterance to the 
dilemma in which he is placed. " Speakest thou 
not unto ME ? " The emphasis shows where 
Pilate is hurt. The peasant Jew scorns him, the 
Roman governor. Before others he might keep 
silence, but when the governor speaks he must 
answer, for Pilate was supreme in authority. 
Yet Jesus may possibly be ignorant of his author- 
ity, so he goes on : " Knowest thou not that I 
have power to release thee, and have power to 
crucify thee ? " Here then is where Pilate finds 
himself. If he acts in accordance with reason 
and justice, he will discharge his prisoner. If he 
acts without reason, and arbitrarily, he may either 
acquit or condemn him. If he does the former, 



142 THE TRANSFIGURING OF THE CROSS. 



conscience will approve ; if the latter, he will 
crush his conscience, and forego forever the real 
claims of justice. 

To this claim of absolute authority, Jesus 
makes reply, not in the way of defending himself, 
or of answering any charge against him, but 
solely in the way of setting before Pilate both 
the truth and the error of his assertion. It is 
therefore for Pilate's sake that he speaks, and 
not for his own. Pilate is carrying a heavy 
responsibility, but Jesus will not suffer him to 
bear more than belongs to him. So in one sen- 
tence he distributes and fixes the responsibility 
with exactness. "Thou wouldest have no power 
at all, except it were given thee from above ; 
therefore he that delivered me unto thee hath 
the greater sin." 

Upon this, the record says, Pilate personally 
sought to release him, but the Jews, perceiving 
his intent, let their civil and ecclesiastical charges 
against Jesus drop, and appealed directly to the 
fears of Pilate, accusing him of being no friend 
to Csesar if he were to let this man go. This 
forces Pilate once more to make a choice be- 
tween yielding to his sense of reverence or fear 
inspired by the calm demeanor of Jesus, or of 
yielding to the nearer and more material fear of 
a plausible accusation made against him at Rome 



GUILT DIVINELY MEASURED. 143 



by these Jews. The nearer dread prevailed, and 
Pilate accordingly gave the command to crucify 
the man whom he could not save. 

The particular question that now arises is : 
What is the measure of Pilate's responsibility for 
this act, or how far is it modified by the word of 
Jesus that " he that delivered me unto thee hath 
the greater sin." In the first place we must put 
aside the thought that Pilate was acting as an 
unconscious instrument of the divine will. This 
would remove at once all guilt, for it is not the 
instrument, but the user of the instrument which 
alone can be charged with responsibility. If 
Pilate was such an instrument, so also were the 
chief priests, for they, no less than he, were, 
according to this theory, working out the divine 
plan. But in this case we eliminate the essential 
quality of crime from the whole proceeding, and 
the death of Jesus becomes a necessity for wliich 
he who made the necessity is alone responsible. 
Against this our common sense revolts, and 
our moral intuitions emphasize the revolution. 
What then does Jesus mean when he tells Pilate 
that he would have no power at all except it 
were given him from above ? He means simply 
that the possession of authority in the civil gov- 
ernment is not an inherent right, but that it is 
derived. Jesus, in answer to Pilate's claim that 



144 THE TRANSFIGURING OF THE CROSS. 



he has the power of releasing and the power of 
crucifying, admits it. He is the lawful governor. 
He represents the emperor, and his decisions are 
ultimate. He is a legally qualified judge, and it 
is his unquestioned prerogative to determine the 
issue presented to him. All this Jesus acknowl- 
edges, and it shows him to be a loyal subject of 
the empire. But since judgment ought to be 
just, human government must be the expression 
of justice, or the fulfilling of the divine will. 
There is then a higher power to which all human 
rulers owe allegiance. Authority finds its whole 
reason for exercise in the will of God. Pilate 
had received his authority from above, and he 
had therefore a right to exercise that authority j 
but it was not an absolute possession, so that he 
might do as he pleased. He was bound by the 
terms of his gift to judge righteous judgment, 
and he himself would be judged only by this one 
criterion. 

But it was not so with the high priest. He 
was the representative of a spiritual power. As 
an officer in the court of God he was bound to 
be faithful to God. Exceptional privileges had 
been granted him. He was the recipient of light 
which Pilate had never enjoyed. He had before 
him the evidence which proved that Jesus was 
the Messiah. His whole education and all the 



GUILT DIVINELY MEASURED. 145 



antecedents of his life liad given him a knowl- 
edge sufficient to a right understanding of the 
mission of Jesus. But he had refused to take 
advantage of these things. He had, in fact, ig- 
nored and despised them. As the chief priest of 
the nation and its most authoritative spiritual 
adviser, he was under special obligations to pre- 
serve its religious life, and maintain its spiritual 
independence. Whatever civil disabilities the 
people might be laboring under tlrrough their 
subjection to Rome, they were under no restraint 
in the development of righteousness or in the 
fulfilling of the law. It was the duty of the high 
priest to point the way to a better life, and to 
set an example wliich should make the way of 
the Lord clear ; but he had deliberately gone back 
upon the work of his office, and instead of using 
the authority given him by God, he had appealed 
to a heathen power to carry out an unjust sen- 
tence upon an innocent man. Thus he was 
guilty of unfaithfulness toward God and of 
unrighteousness toward man. Pilate at least 
was within the lawful exercise of his power, even 
though he was guilty of injustice. He was en- 
titled to the functions of a governor and judge ; 
but the high priest was not only maliciously 
unjust in his prosecution of Jesus, but he was 
guilty of using a power not given him to the 

10 



146 THE TRANSFIGURING OF THE CROSS. 

dishonor of God and to the humiliating of his 
own nation. Thus he had the greater sin. 

Now these two men represent certain ethical 
conditions which it may be well to consider. 

Pilate stands for men who have a perception 
of what is right, and whose feelings are in favor 
of justice, but whose wills are weak, and conse- 
quently are overborne by the pressure of sel- 
fishness, and the desire to maintain personal 
advantage. They are impressed by goodness, 
and attracted by its loveliness, but they have no 
faith in it because they have no faith in them- 
selves. They realize the oscillations of their 
own souls ; and in the tendencies that draw them 
hither and thither, they think they recognize 
something which is inherent in all humanity. To 
them truth is an unattainable object, and it 
seems to be a sad waste when one is ready to 
make a sacrifice to find it or maintain it. Such 
men do not know what it means to be controlled 
by a steady impulse, or to be filled with an 
unceasing enthusiasm. The standard which they 
use is low enough to put Jesus and Barabbas on 
the same plane, making one a substitute for the 
other. This shows that their moral perceptions 
do not transcend the limits of feeling or emotion. 
They do not rise to the height of principle. 
They have an uncertain quality, and you are 



GUILT DIVINELY MEASURED. 147 



never sure of a trustworthy response. You will 
find such men often standing for the right, and 
advocating reform, and demanding that the law 
be enforced, but if a concrete case comes before 
them and the issue of it is likely to interfere 
with their business or political or social pros- 
pects, they cool down or retreat behind some 
generality which is meaningless. Pilate, as gov- 
ernor, owed his position to the good-will of 
Tiberius, and yet theoretically he was expected 
to administer his office in accordance with Roman 
law for the benefit of the Roman nation. But 
the first question he asked was not, " What is 
right and just ? " but " What will best secure my 
tenure of office ? " Jesus advised him that this 
question had really nothing to do with his 
administration. He held his position subject to 
the divine will, and he was bound to carry out 
that will, no matter what the consequence might 
be. He was not bold enough to accept that ad- 
vice, and his cowardly time-serving attitude has 
been imitated ever since. The spirit of Pilate 
manifests itself in men whose first thought is for 
themselves and their last thought for others, but 
they have never yet had this last thought, or if 
they have had it, no saving deed has grown out 
of it. There has been neither a willing spirit nor 
a vigorous flesh. Virtue in such men is almost 



148 THE TRANSFIGURING OF THE CROSS. ' 

as much a hindrance as vice. We can only say 
of them that they are neither good enough nor 
bad enough to do the thing they try to do. Yet 
in the end such men send the Christ to the 
cross. 

The men who are represented by Caiaphas are 
not so numerous as those represented by Pilate, 
but they stand for a more persistent hostility to 
the truth. They are equally but more consis- 
tently selfish. They plan to do evil, and their 
shrewd designs are masterpieces of intellectual 
sagacity. They keep their hate at a white heat 
and are constantly furnishing it with fuel. 
They move on step by step, and in their remorse- 
less zeal they count every man an enemy who 
does not assist them, and reckon no man a friend 
who is not positively with them. They use all 
things for aid in complete indifference to their 
moral qu.alities. As Pharisees they enter into a 
coalition with Herodians, as Jews they join with 
Romans, and as men of high caste they mingle 
with publicans and sinners. They call to their 
service religion, politics, and society, being hj^o- 
crites in the first, conspirators and liars in the 
second, and demagogues in the third. They 
may be free from personal vice, but they are 
immoral at heart ; the}^ may be orthodox in faith, 
but they are miscreants in deed; they may be 



GUILT DIVINELY MEASURED. 



149 



respectable iii sight, but they are infamous in 
secret. This is no picture of the imagination, 
but a photograph from life. If it seems over- 
drawn, read your New Testament, and you will 
find every feature emphasized in the portrait of 
the men who hated Jesus without a cause, and 
stayed not in their madness so long as he or one 
of his disciples lived on the earth. 

But how shall we account for such depravity? * 
A brief psychological study unfolds the reason. 
These were men of exceptional privileges. They 
were in the ranks of the elect, the chosen ones. 
They were born in the light. They were the 
inheritors of prophecy, and song, and history, 
and philosophy. Back of them were men who 
were kings and priests unto God. Into their 
hands were given the divine oracles. They were 
the children of Abraham and Moses. For them 
the law was written not only on tables of stone, 
but in their minds and hearts. They were 
dwellers in Jerusalem, the city of God and of 
the great king ; they were accustomed to the 
temple, and its gorgeous ritual was a familiar 
service to them. But they had misused all these 
high advantages. They sinned in the light and 
against the light. Knowing what was the per- 
fect law they broke it. Having a clear knowl- 
edge of their duty they refused to do it. Thus 



150 THE TRANSFIGURING OF THE CROSS. 



they became rebellious. They gave themselves 
up to treason against the commonwealth of 
Israel. Now the man who hates his own country 
has a deeper hatred than any foreigner can have, 
and so the man who turns the truth of God into 
a lie, and goes back on the principles of his 
religion, if it be a good religion, will hate those 
principles with tremendous intensity, and he 
will hate with unexampled fury the man who 
shows him his sin. That is, he will hate him 
if he does not listen to him and repent. Jesus 
was the man divinely commissioned to set the 
Jews right. He came unto his own to show them 
their sin, and to bid them turn and live. With 
marvellous fulness and perspicacity he showed 
them the innermost secrets of their lives, and they 
could not help seeing the truth. This enraged 
them. The sermon on the Mount made a tre- 
mendous sensation. The parables he told cut 
them to the heart. The controversies over the 
healing of the paralytic and the blind man left 
a tingling in their ears which they could not 
endure. They called him names in their wrath. 
They said he was a Samaritan, a devil, a friend 
of publicans and of women of the town. They 
hired men to assassinate him, and then lied about 
it, in order to get him off his guard, and so 
accomplish their purpose. It was liis purity, his 



GUILT DIVINELY MEASURED. 151 



calmness, his unruffled temper, his uncompromis- 
ing denunciation of their sin which maddened 
them. This anger was doubly hot for two rea- 
sons: First, his characterization of them was 
true; second, they knew it to be true, because 
they had been taught what was right long before 
he came among them. If you were to go into 
the slums and charge the dwellers there with 
vice and crime you would not hurt their feelings 
very much, because they have so small a compre- 
hension of what sin is ; but if you go into a re- 
spectable man's house and charge him with crime, 
if you tell him that he is a thief because he is 
a participator in dividends that have been ob- 
tained by robbery, or because he is the beneficiary 
of a fraudulent contract with the city, you will 
be likely to call down upon your head some 
wrath that blazes with blue and gold, and you 
may hear a suggestion that it would be well if 
you were put where your mouth would be forever 
closed. 

There is no great difficulty, then, in accounting 
for the depravity of Caiaphas. He is not so 
great a monster in wickedness but that he finds 
his counterpart all through history. Wherever a 
true reformer arises and makes thorough work, 
a Caiaphas will surely be found, who to the mild 
and half-hearted interposition of weak-kneed 



152 THE TRANSFIGURING OF THE CROSS. 



Pilates saying " I find no fault in him " will 
boldly answer : What of it ! He is not fit to 
live. Away with him ! Crucify him ! " 

These two men, then, represent the chief 
forces of evil in this world. One is the indiffer- 
ent, fairly good-hearted, selfish, partly ignorant, 
superstitious, cowardly, and very weak Pilate; 
the other the persistent, strong-minded, well 
educated, highly respectable, but thoroughly de- 
praved Caiaphas, hating righteousness because 
of his own unrighteousness, hating sincerity be- 
cause of his own insincerity, and hating purity 
and truth because of his own impurity and false- 
hood. 

When such forces co-operate it does not much 
matter whether one has greater sin than the 
other. Caiaphas, though he ma}^ be the greater 
sinner, is the nobler character ; for, while he may 
be the object of our hate, he will not, like Pilate, 
be the object of our contempt and scorn. Pilate, 
however, will have our pity ; for we shall think 
of him as honestly trying, up to the measure of 
his prudential ability, to save Jesus from the 
cross. Yet the fact stands before us, that these 
two forces represent the antagonism that is in 
the world to-day to Christ and his salvation. 
The opposition is not doctrinal or theoretical. 
Neither Pilate nor Caiaphas opposed Jesus as 



GUILT DIVINELY MEASURED. 153 



a philosopher or metaphysician. It was not to 
settle his place in the Trinity, or to complete 
a scheme of atonement, or to verify a method of 
inspiration, or to perfect a theodicy that Jesus 
went to the cross. Caiaphas sent him there ba- 
cause he was the Revealer of Sin, and also its 
Destroyer; and Jesus accepted his fate that he 
might prove that Love is the only thing in the 
world that can overcome hate and weakness, and 
open up a way of salvation so broad and perfect 
that in its compass it includes to the uttermost 
all who will look that way, even though one wear 
the robes and tiara of a high priest, and the other 
wields the sceptre and wears the crown of a 
Roman governor. 



VII. 

THE CROSS IN DEVELOPMENT. 



The Christ redeemed the world by becoming himself 
the perfect redeemer. In his own life there was the at- 
tainment and the fulfilment of perfect righteousness. — 
MuLFORD : The Republic of God. 

For the essence of the teaching of Jesus was that here 
and now, in the ordinary course of the w^orld, and without 
any supernatural interference, the only real power is the 
power of goodness and of God . . . the disciples of Christ 
need not say Lo here ! and Lo there ! for the kingdom of 
God is already in the midst of them, — already present and 
growing in their hearts, so that they do not require to look 
beyond themselves for the evidences of it. Its evidence 
lies simply in its existence as a power that lives and de- 
velops in the spirit of man. — Prof. Edward Caird : 
Evolution of Religion. 

So far as Jesus made the purpose of his Messianic work 
on earth as a whole refer to the establishment of the king- 
dom of God, and so far as he viewed his death as the final 
culmination of his work. He could ascribe to his death in 
a special sense the significance which belonged to his work 
as a whole, — the significance of accomplishing the estab- 
lishment of the kingdom of God for the benefit of men. — 
Wp:ndt : The Teaching of Jesus. 



VII. 



THE CROSS IN DEVELOPMENT. 



Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay 
doivn his life for his friends. — John xv. 13. 

Then they took Jesus and led him aivay. And he, 
hearing his cross, went forth to the place called the 
place of the skull, ivhich is called in Hehrew 
Golgotha: where they crucified him. — John xix. 



THE fact of vicarious suffering is as old as 
human affection, and it will remain a fact 
as long as human affection is potent in the affairs 
of this world. It would seem as if a fact which 
has so long been under observation, and has 
had so vast a number of illustrations, might be 
brought under some general law, so that one 
might give a reason for it which would be satis- 
factory to the logical understanding. 

This has never been done. Somewhere in the 
act there is sure to arise a question which cannot 
be answered. If it be a case where one man lays 



11, 18. 




158 THE TRANSFIGURING OF THE CROSS. 

down his life for another we may be able to see 
the motive that prompted the act, but we cannot 
square the act with our notions of justice, and 
hence we are driven to the alternative of reject- 
ing our notions of justice, or rejecting the 
righteousness of the vicarious deed. But we 
cannot reject our notions of justice without de- 
stroying the foundation of ethical life, nor can we 
forego our approval of the act of sacrifice with- 
out going back on the deepest of our moral intu- 
itions. We are brought face to face with this 
antinomy every time we hear of an actual case of 
such sacrifice, or read the story of it in a work of 
fiction. The story of Sidney Carton, in Dickens's 
" Tale of Two Cities," seems to us an inexpli- 
cable fact. The man was an outcast, a disreputable 
and profligate member of a dissolute society. He 
fell in love with a pure woman, the wife of an- 
other man. He kept his love in his heart, and 
worshipped her from afar. That love burned 
within him until it flamed forth in a divine hero- 
ism. The husband of the woman was condemned 
to death by the guillotine during the Reign of 
Terror. He was granted a reprieve and pardoned ; 
but before he could escape he was rearrested, 
retried, and condemned again. Now there was 
no hope for him. The sentence was to be ex- 
ecuted on the following day. Sidney Carton 



THE CROSS IN DEVELOPMENT. 159 

obtained access to his cell, gave him a stupefying 
drink, changed clothes with him, and with the 
aid of an accomplice succeeded in having him 
taken out and conveyed in safety beyond the 
border. He himself remained behind, and on the 
morrow joined the procession that led to the guil- 
lotine. His past life made him think of himself 
as the penitent thief who was crucified with 
Jesus, and he went to his death with a sublime 
joy in his soul, because for the sake of love he 
had saved another, though himself he could not 
save. 

Now there is no possible way open to human 
logic by which you can make the death of this 
man a righteous act ; and yet, in the face of that, 
you believe with all your heart and mind that it 
was acceptable in the sight of Infinite righteous- 
ness. 

If Carton had propounded this question to 
himself: "What shall I do to be saved?" he 
would have said : " I must save another, and lose 
myself." 

But while we confess our inability to answer 
all the questions that arise from acts of loving 
self-sacrifice, when we turn to the history of such 
deeds, we find something in them that permits us 
to look with equanimity upon the antinomy, and 
to accept them as in accordance with a reason 



160 THE TRANSFIGURING OF THE CROSS. 



which is above reason, or beyond the logical 
understanding. 

There are various elements in the conclusion 
to w^hich we come, but the preponderating ele- 
ment is that every such sacrifice is the last resort, 
the culminating effort of love. It is always fore- 
seen as a possibility, but is not ordained as inevi- 
table. When, however, it is reached, it becomes 
the ratification of love, and the salvation wrought 
by it is the completion rather than the inception 
of the determined purpose. 

This is the fact with regard to the death of Jesus 
viewed as a sacrifice on our behalf. Theology 
has made this sacrifice the ground of our redemp- 
tion. It has asserted that before God could be 
gracious and pardon us it was necessary that 
Jesus should die, the just for the unjust. In 
other words it was the death of Jesus tlat set in 
motion the machinery of forgiveness, which with- 
out that death would forever stand still and in- 
operative. Now if this be true it seems to us 
that the larger part of the gospel history is com- 
paratively valueless. For if God cannot and will 
not forgive us without a ransom, then, although 
we may be thankful to him who pays the ransom, 
its payment will not produce in us any thankful- 
ness toward God, because it is not a matter of 
grace on his part, but only the receiving an 



THE CROSS IN DEVELOFMENT. 161 



eqiTivalent, or a substitute. AA-liicli he reckons as 
a quid pro C£UO. 

But Are are not clriyen into such a position as 
tliis. The teaching of Jesus is clear on this point 
and must be accepted without reservation. It is 
this alone with which we are now to deal. Sub- 
seciuent to the death of Christ various theories 
have been set forth to account for it and give it 
a place in theologic speculation. With the truth 
or falsity of these we have nothing to do in this 
chscussion. The sole aim before us is to present 
the facts of salvation as they appeared in the 
mind of Jesus during his earthly ministry. Two 
general facts appear as the result of a review of 
liis entire ministry. First, The whole work of 
Jesus as a Saviour was done under the direction 
and in accordance with the will of God, so that 
God himseK is the author of deliverance from 
sin, and the testator of every inheritance unto 
eternal life. Second, There is no suo-o-estion or 
hint that Jesus undertook to overcome any re- 
luctance on the part of God to save man. Jesus 
noAvhere affirms that he stands between man and 
the wi\ith of God, and takes the blow which ven- 
geance is tliirsting to administer. He nowhere 
declares that he is under the necessity of doing 
anything to propitiate God, or to make him will- 
ino' to redeem man from bondao-e. On the other 

11 



162 THE TRANSFIGURING OF THE CROSS. 



hand, he clearly and unmistakably asserts that it 
is the will of the Heavenly Father that none 
should perish. 

But while no necessity is laid upon Jesus to 
avert the wrath of God, it is nevertheless true 
that he comes to view his death as a necessity, so 
inevitable that we must affirm and believe that 
without the suffering of death neither his own 
life nor the' life of his followers would be 
complete. 

The proof of this is seen first, in the common 
experience which he has with all men who have 
stood in the forefront of reformatory and regen- 
erative movements, and second, in the special 
view which he took of his death in relation to 
his work in life. That Jesus anticipated his 
death is by no means a strange or unaccountable 
fact. That it should take place in Jerusalem, 
and as the act of the religious leaders of the 
nation, is no more than what might be expected. 
He foresaw his death as other men have foreseen 
theirs in the midst of the most intense enmity. 
The fires of persecution have blazed in large 
centres of influence where religious domination 
has had most imperative sway. This fact was 
as apparent to Jesus as it is to us. He showed 
this in his lament over the sacred city : " O 
Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the pro- 



THE CROSS IN DEVELOPMENT, 163 



phets, and stonest them that are sent unto thee ; " 
and he made it still more evident by the care 
which he took to preserve himself from harm 
when he visited the city. In the application 
which he made to himself of the suffering servant 
of God as portrayed in the second part of Isaiah, 
we see clearly his anticipation of the fate that 
would befall him if he continued his work. He 
needed no supernatural poAver of prediction to 
foresee this, for the history of his own people 
had emphasized the fact that suffering and death 
■ was the . inevitable lot of the righteous man. 
But besides this, the world itself had admitted 
the truth. You will find it repeatedly expressed 
in the great tragedies of Greek genius ; and a say- 
ing in the Republic of Plato, that " when the just 
man appears he will be scourged, racked, bound, 
have his eyes put out, and at last crucified," is 
so near the actual circumstances of the death 
of Jesus that one is almost inclined to regard 
it as predictive of the death of the Son of Man. 
In the scene of the transfiguration we get not 
only the anticipation but a partial reason for it. 
In that scene, Moses and Elias, the representa- 
tives of Law and Prophecy, appear with him, 
and speak of the " decease which he was about to 
accomplish at Jerusalem." This is a suggestive 
inference that his death would fulfil, complete, 



164 THE TRANSFIGURING OF THE CROSS. 



and render unnecessary both Law and Prophecy, 
for it would complete and perfect his work, 
and thus its shame would be transfigured in 
glory. 

In such sayings also as, "Greater love hath 
no man than this, that he lay doAvn bis life for 
his friends," and " I, if I be lifted up from the 
earth, will draw all men unto me," we get a view 
of the manner in which he conceived of his 
death. These passages show that he regarded 
it as something which would be directly benefi- 
cial to man, in that it would not only be a power 
of salvation, but it would be the means of rais- 
ing him to a realm where his attractive influence 
would be enlarged from the few to the many, 
even to all men. This is perhaps enough to 
prove that he contemplated his death as a means 
unto an end, and while we must admit that the 
reality of it did not come to him without a 
struggle, and a deeper sense of trouble of soul 
than we can measure, yet it is true that on the 
whole he regarded it with a sublime cheerful- 
ness, accepting it not as an awful and mysterious 
fate, but as the will of his Father, and further- 
more as the one thing which should bring to 
him the full fruition of his hopes. There is no 
more striking instance of this latter view than 
the answer he made to Peter when the ambitious 



THE CROSS IN DEVELOPMENT. 165 

and presumptuous disciple rebuked him for 
predicting Ms death. Peter said : " Be it far 
from thee, Lord ; this shall not be unto thee," 
But Jesus answered, " Get thee behind me, 
Satan, for thou savor est not the things that 
be of God, but of men/' Then turning to all 
the disciples he said, among other things, For 
what is a man profited if he gain the whole 
world and lose his own soul? or what shall a 
man give in exchange for his soul? for the Son 
of Man shall come in the glory of his Father, 
with his angels, and then shall he reward every 
man according to his works." Then he adds 
this significant sentence, which makes the former 
perfectly clear ; " Verily I say unto you there 
be some standing here who shall not taste of 
death till they see the Son of Man coming in 
his kingdom." The saying was misunderstood 
then and for some time after, but it was clear 
enough when the cross was transfigured in glory, 
and salvation was proclaimed through the cruci- 
fied one. The profit of Jesus which he might 
have gained by his earthly existence was nothing 
compared to that which he obtained through his 
death. The cross uplifted in honor was the 
signal, the banner carried in triumph before the 
Son of Man coming in his kingdom. 

But while Jesus anticipated the cross, he did 



166 THE TRANSFIGURING OF THE CROSS. 



not from the outset assume it to be inevitable 
to the completion of his mission. Its inevitable- 
ness lay, not in the sphere of determinism, but 
in his own free and unfettered will. He did not 
in the beginning say " I must die in order to 
finish my work," but " I must fulfil the will of 
Him that sent me, whatever that will may be." 
It will be interesting to trace the progress of 
his work, and to note how each step was com- 
plete in itself, and yet how each step made way 
for further advance. In each step the ruling 
motive is the same, and the end aimed at is 
the same, but the steps are different, not as 
being in antagonism, but as moving along inde- 
pendent lines, all of which converge at last in 
the cross. 

Starting, then, with the general assumption 
that Jesus came to ojjen up the way of salvation 
to the world, we ask. How did he make this 
evident? It is perhaps difficult to make an 
exact chronology, but I think a fair consideration 
of the history of his ideas, would show us first, 
an improvement on the teaching of the Baptist; 
second, a setting forth of the character of the 
kingdom of heaven and a declaration that en- 
trance therein constituted one condition of com- 
plete salvation ; third, a gradual centering of 
the means of salvation in himself, making the 



THE CROSS IN DEVELOPMENT. 167 

acceptance or belief in his personal words and 
deeds also a condition of complete salvation; 
fourth, a declaration of the necessity of his death 
as essential to the completeness of his work as 
a Saviour, and the illustration of this necessity 
in the Memorial Supper. 

I will briefly go over these points. 

John the Baptist was a preacher of righteous- 
ness and equity. His great mission is to an- 
nounce a judgment day. His speech is strong 
and vigorous, but without gentleness. He thinks 
only of destroying the wicked, not of saving 
them. He expects that Jesus will be even more 
violent than himself. " I baptize with water," 
he says, "but he shall baptize you with fire." 

When this man's voice is silenced, Jesus comes 
and calls men to repentance, not, however, that 
they may escape from wrath, but that they may 
be blessed. He offers a gospel of glad tidings. 
He speaks not of separating, but of uniting. He 
affirms that the Father's arms are open to em- 
brace his lost children. He assumes that there 
is no insuperable obstacle to repentance. That 
any man is disqualified from it by reason of sin 
is entirely unknown to Jesus. He always urges 
men to come on their own responsibility, but he 
does this with perfect confidence, because salva- 
tion is already prepared for them. He says that 



168 THE TRANSFIGURING OF THE CROSS. 

" the time is fulfilled." All that is essential to 
man's salvation is now provided, for he is the 
good shepherd who has come to seek and save 
the lost. 

Now, it is evident that at this time no appre- 
hension of danger has come to Jesus. He finds 
a ready and welcome hearing. If the scene in 
the Temple described in the early part of the 
Fourth Gospel is in its correct place then we 
must admit that he soon found that his pathway 
was not to be strewn with roses, but even this 
story yields no further result than the necessity 
of a wise caution in entrusting himself to those 
who applauded the act of cleansing the Temple. 

But now his preaching begins to assume more 
definite shape. The death of John the Baptist 
opens the way for a more untrammelled speech. 
The need of settling controversies between them 
ceases. He gives full credit to the work of John, 
declaring him to be the greatest among men born 
of women, but he can plainly say, that " the least 
in the kingdom of heaven is greater than John, 
because the prophets and the law prophesied until 
John," but now the glad message, and the good 
tidings are to have full sway. Hence he advances 
to the idea of salvation as realized in the kingdom 
of heaven. He presents this as a present king- 
dom, to be realized now. The pure in heart, the 



THE CROSS IN DEVELOPMENT. 169 



poor in spirit, the meek, the merciful, the peace- 
makers, and those who hunger and thirst after 
righteousness are already in possession of this 
kingdom, and there is no other condition of being 
in it and occupying it, than a simple childlike 
acceptance of it. But presently he goes on to 
assert that there are conditions, and he makes 
these far more difficult than obeying any Mosaic 
law. Such morality as is embodied in the middle 
sections of the sermon on the Mount never before 
had utterance. It is the loftiest ethical teaching, 
and almost beyond human attainment. No one 
ever quite succeeds in living up to it. Now these 
easy and hard conditions are brought together by 
simply taking Jesus' conception of the kingdom 
of heaven. It is like a merry feast, and it is like 
a strait and narrow way. We enter into it as 
little children, but as men we must take it by 
force. Its beginning in the human soul is like a 
tender plant out of a dry ground, but in its devel- 
opment it becomes a mighty cedar of Lebanon. 
Jesus recognizes the ability of the weakest and 
humblest to come into this kingdom, and there- 
fore to obtain salvation even while he is in the 
world, and before any definite prospect of his 
death has appeared to him. He says he has come 
to call sinners to repentance, and he proves his call 
by making his invitation personal to them, and 



170 THE TRANSFIGURING OF THE CROSS. 



also by placing before them, as the goal of their 
being, the highest perfection. " Be ye also per- 
fect," he says, "even as your Father in heaven is 
perfect." This is the aim toward which they are 
to strive, and up to this time he lays stress only 
upon moral freedom and the kindly help of the 
Heavenly Father as a means of attaining this aim. 
He makes salvation a matter of grace, but he in- 
sists Tlpon it that salvation involves personal 
righteousness, and, as this is a matter of the will, 
therefore he can logically say, "Except your 
righteousness exceed the righteousness of the 
scribes and Pharisees ye cannot enter the king- 
dom of heaven," and, understanding as he does 
the perversity, or heedlessness, or lack of percep- 
tion in men, he declares that " many are called, 
but few are chosen." The apparent narrowness 
of this is offset by the story of the marriage of 
the king's son, where, among the multitude of 
guests, only one was found who had not on a 
wedding garment. This story shows that in the 
matter of choice there is a mutual co-ordination of 
human and divine action. The king's invitation 
is broad enough, but the invited guest is bound to 
observe the conventionalities of royal society, and 
if he is put out of the palace or sent away from 
the table as one not chosen, it is his own fault. 
Now, without giving further illustrations, it 



THE CROSS IN DEVELOPMENT: 171 



will be eyiclent, I think, that there is a teaching 
of Jesus concerning admission and life in the 
kingdom of heaven which makes salvation com- 
pletely attainable without entering upon any 
of those theories which have been put upon or 
drawn out of the cross. The question has not 
been raised as yet : How can God be just, and 
yet save the sinner? Jesus certainly has not 
suggested it, and yet there seems to be no lack 
in his idea of the sufficiency of the terms of 
salvation. Any man who will, may enter into 
the kingdom and be saved. But the essential 
characteristic of the gospel being good tidings, 
there is laid upon it the necessity of making 
it effective as well as sufficient. Hence we find 
Jesus advancing his doctrine by more definite 
lessons. Whether it be true or not that 'he 
perceived from the outset the necessity of con- 
necting his own person and death with salvation, 
it is certainly true that he did not at first unfold 
this idea. He nowhere corrects himself, or inti- 
mates that any doctrine which he has taught 
must be abandoned, but he certainly moves on 
into higher and deeper realms of thought, so 
that a preceding view is completed in a succeed- 
ing one. I think it will be plain to every reader 
of the gospels that there is a decided advance 
in thought between the salvation which comes 



172 THE TRANSFIGURING OF THE CROSS, 



through entering the kingdom of heaven as a 
little child and that which is wrought by being 
obedient to his word, and trusting to his power 
as manifested in the signs which he gave in 
evidence of his divine commission, and then 
again that there is a further advance when he 
demands that the people listen to him without 
signs, just as the people of Nineveh listened 
to the preaching of Jonah. 

There is a period, not accurately marked, but 
still sufficiently marked to be noticeable, when 
he calls upon men to repent and be converted, 
not through the general revelation made in times 
past, but specifically through the word which 
he himself proclaims. He speaks in the first 
person, and insists that he himself is authority, 
and that his ipse dixit is a guarantee of the 
truth he utters. The first time that this con- 
sciousness makes itself apparent is in the prayer 
which he utters thanking his Father that these 
things have been hidden from the wise and 
prudent and revealed unto babes. Here, if we 
mistake not, is the genuine fruit of experience. 
He has begun to realize that his work is not 
to be successful. Opposition which found no 
expression in an earlier day is now lodged against 
him. He feels the weight of it. At first he 
is discouraged. The people whom he desired 



THE CROSS IN DEVELOPMENT. 173 



to influence, turn their backs upon him, but 
there are others, whom in the nature of things 
he did not expect to touch, who appreciate his 
work and gladly receive it. The scribes and 
the sages of the land have taken offence at him, 
but the poor peasants of Galilee have welcomed 
him " for his own sake," and in this welcome 
he sees the hopes of the future. This thought 
enlarges the conception of his mission, and he 
confidently declares that " all things have been 
delivered unto him by the Father, and that only 
the Father knoweth the Son, and only the Son 
knoweth the Father," and that to the Son is 
therefore given the full and free revelation of the 
Father. Then follows that grand outburst which 
is the first universal invitation of Christianity 
and in which the messenger and the message 
are completely identified : " Come unto me all 
ye that labor and are heavy laden and I will give 
you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn 
of me ; for I am meek and lowly in heart ; and 
ye shall find rest unto yoiu* souls ; for my yoke 
is easy, and my burden is light." Now it is 
right along at this period that we get the most 
emphatic assertions of the personal relation of 
Jesus to the salvation he has proclaimed. " He 
that receive th you receiveth me, and he that 
receiveth me receiveth him that sent me." 



174 THE TRANSFIGURING OF THE CROSS. 



"He that is not for me is against me." "He 
that heareth my words and belie veth on him 
that sent me hath eternal life." This personal 
assertion continues even to the closing hours 
of his life. " Now are ye clean," he says to the 
disciples at the supper, " through the word I have 
spoken to you." " I am the Truth, I am the Life, 
I am the Way." In these and many other ex- 
pressions we perceive that Jesus has passed from 
the general doctrine of salvation to the specific 
doctrine that he is himself the Saviour. Tliere 
is a remarkable example of this progress of 
thought in the fifth and sixth chapters of the 
Fourth Gospel. First, he speaks of the bread 
of life which the Son of Man gives, which corre- 
sponds, of course, to the word that he has spoken ; 
then he affirms : " I am the Bread of Life," that 
is, he makes personal communion with himself 
essential to salvation. Then the metaphor of the 
bread is expressed in the most realistic terms. 
" The bread which I shall give is my fleshy which 
I shall give for the life of the world." This is 
personal mediatorship in the highest sense. Only 
by eating this bread, and by assimilating it do we 
become partakers of the true life which knows 
no death. It is the bread of life of which we 
partake. 

We are now coming to the point where we see 



THE CROSS IN DEVELOPMENT. 175 



before us the passion and death of Jesus, and we 
are to consider its saving significance. Yon will 
notice, however, and I cannot too strenuously in- 
sist upon it, that there is no doubt in the mind 
of Jesus of the complete sufficiency of the glad 
tidings which he has proclaimed. Many have 
already come into the kingdom through his 
preaching. They have repented, or they have 
been converted, and their sins have been for- 
given. They have accepted the divine condi- 
tions, and their consequent salvation is assured. 
They have believed his word, and they have 
accordingly been made clean every whit, and no 
suggestion has been made that they must be 
"washed in the blood of the Lamb." Some 
have found him as their personal Saviour, and 
made their open confession : " Lord, to whom 
shall we go? Thou alone hast the words of 
eternal life," and Jesus is looked upon as their 
living Saviour, and as having completed his work 
in their hearts. 

For a long time, however, Jesus has been con- 
scious of an approaching crisis. He is aware that 
his path is beset with enemies. Repeated schemes 
of assassination are disclosed to him, from which 
he escapes. The Pharisees, unable to contradict 
the popular evidence of his good works, have 
attributed his power to an evil spirit, going so 



176 THE TRANSFIGURING OF THE CROSS. 

far as to suggest that he is m league with Beelze- 
bub, the prince of demons. Thus on every side 
he is threatened with personal violence. He be- 
comes convinced at last that the task of winning 
men to salvation through any of the means he has 
thus far used is hopeless. If his mission had been 
a private one, and addressed to a chosen few only, 
this would not much matter, but he has been sent 
into the world to save the world. Then he must 
not shrink from making the last, and greatest 
possible, effort. This was actually included in 
the surrender he made to his Father's will when 
he accepted the mission, but that it did not ap- 
pear to him as an absolute necessity until its 
very near approach is evident from the prayer in 
the Gethsemane garden : " Father, if it be possible, 
remove this cup from me : All things are possible 
unto thee ; nevertheless, not my will but thine be 
done." The uncertainty indicated by this prayer 
is easily explained if we note this distinction. So 
far as himself was concerned, Jesus surrendered 
his life from the moment he began his mission, 
just as an officer of the government sometimes 
puts his resignation into the hands of the appoint- 
ing power as soon as he is appointed, leaving it 
there to be made effective at the discretion of the 
appointing power, but, so far as his work was 
concerned, he did not know and he could not tell 



THE CROSS IN DEVELOPMENT. 177 



whether this sacrifice would be demanded or not. 
He certainly began in the faith of a possibility of 
repentance on the part of the people through his 
preaching alone, and until that possibility became 
a practical impossibility he did not look for death 
as the crown of his work in saving the world. 
Yet that possibility was present with him from 
the outset, as it is present with every reformer 
and preacher of truth who enters upon his mission 
in the midst of a gainsaying and selfish commun- 
ity. The hatred engendered by his preaching 
pointed to this as the inevitable conclusion. His 
Messiahship was utterly at war with the sensuous 
notions of the great mass of the people. Yet they 
were attracted by the sweetness and purity of his 
life, and its unselfish desire and labor for their 
good. Thus they wavered between support and 
rejection of him. At times they were wild with 
enthusiasm on his behalf, and then they would 
fall away until none were left. This variation 
of sentiment boded no good to Jesus. It, how- 
ever, drove him, not unwillingly, into closer 
communion with his Father. As his prospects 
darkened he sought oftener the solitude of the 
mountain for prayer. The dividing line, so far 
as we can trace it, between the hope of success 
in life and the necessity of death to accomplish 
his work, is the Mount of Transfiguration. Its 

12 



178 THE TRANSFIGURING OF THE CROSS. 



open declaration is in the prophetic words, " I am 
come to send fire on the earth," that is, the ele- 
ment that pnrihes, and "what will I if it be 
already kindled? But I have a baptism to be 
baptized with ; and how am I straitened until 
it be accomplished ! " 

The thought here is that the full results of his 
work cannot be obtained in this earthly life. This 
is an idea that comes frequently to the front in 
the closing days of his life. He tells the disciples 
that it is " expedient for him to go away," and he 
reminds them that " except a corn of wheat fall 
into the ground and die it abideth alone, but if 
it die it bringeth forth much fruit." In such 
sayings as these we see clearly that he feels that 
the earthly influence of his life is limited, and 
that if he would fully realize himself he must be 
set free by death. Only in some other sphere or 
under some other circumstances not connected 
with his mortal existence can he become the ef- 
fective agent in the world's salvation. It is evi- 
dent, then, that he regards his death as necessary 
for himself, that is, he is sure that it will give him 
a power and influence which nothing else can 
secure. But this does not directly prove its 
necessity for us. Is there any such necessity? 
It must be confessed that no clear answer can be 
given from the words of Jesus to this question, 



THE CROSS IN DEVELOPMENT. 179 



but a brief view of the Memorial Supper will 
perhaps enable us to understand that there is at 
least a reflective influence in his death which 
brings it into the category of things required for 
salvation. In the Institution of the Supper, Jesus 
used language that is somewhat diflicult of inter- 
pretation. He spoke of the bread as his body, 
and the wine as his blood. The pictorial charac- 
ter of these expressions will be admitted by all 
except those literalists who cling to the doctrine 
under one form or another of the Real Presence. 
With this question we have nothing to do. We 
assume the symbolic character of the language, 
and regard the broken bread as a reminder of 
the ancient Passover. There is this difference, 
however. In the Passover the flesh of the lamb 
was used, and therefore the ceremonial was 
exclusive and restrictive, but in using bread at 
the Supper, instead of meat, Jesus represents a 
universal idea. Bread is food for every one. 
It constitutes the one essential article of diet, 
among all people and in all places. Therefore 
he took the unleavened bread of the Pass- 
over as a symbol which could be universally 
used. But the Lamb was the sacrifice. The 
Hebrews partook of it as signifying first, their 
exemption from death, and their deliverance 
from bondage, second, as furnishing them the 



180 THE TRANSFIGURING OF THE CROSS. 

sustenance in the strength of which they were to 
go on to the promised land. 

Now Jesus in offering his body under the 
symbol of bread desires the disciples to partake 
of it as signifying their accomplished release 
from the bondage of sin, and as that which 
inwardly appropriated will give them strength to 
go on their way. When he says to the disciples : 
"This is given or broken for you," he cannot 
mean that it is given as a means for initiating 
them into salvation, nor is it the ground upon 
which their salvation rests ; for they are already 
disciples, and according to the category .of repent- 
ance and conversion, saved men. He does not 
tell them that the eating of this bread is the 
means of removing their guilt, and furnishing a 
pardon, for this has been done. He does not in 
any way hint at a retroactive effect of his death ; 
but he points them forward, and in bidding them 
" do this in remembrance " of him, he only aims 
at keeping himself alive in their hearts. He 
does not mean to abide in death, but to overcome 
it, and rise into unconquerable life. His death 
is a token of salvation to them, because in spite 
of his death he will not perish in death. He 
is to be perpetually remembered as the living 
Christ, and to make this sure he promises to come 
again and be with his followers always, even unto 
the consummation of the ages. 



THE CROSS IN DEVELOPMENT. 181 



This, then, is the significance of the bread eaten 
in tlie communion. It is the bread of life, not 
because it originates life, not because partaking 
of it is the initiative condition of life, but because 
it sustains, nourishes, and invigorates the life 
which has already been initiated by repentance 
and regeneration. After partaking of the bread, 
Jesus gave them wine, saying, " This is my blood 
of the covenant," or " This is the neiv covenant in 
my blood." This expression, " blood of the cove- 
nant," is undoubtedly a Mosaic reminiscence. In 
the ancient story we are told that blood was 
sprinkled upon the people, not as preparatory to 
receiving the covenant, but after it had been 
formally adopted. When the people had declared 
" All the words which the Lord hath spoken will 
we do," then, and not till then, was the sacrifice 
made^ and the blood sprinkled upon the congre- 
gation. Now when Jesus says " This is my blood," 
or " This is the blood of the new covenant," he is 
certainly not speaking of a covenant yet to be, 
but of one already made and accepted, and for 
the ratification of which he offers himself as a 
guarantee ; and the wine of which the disciples 
partake is the symbol of the ancient blood sprink- 
ling, and it is to be received as the seal or pledge 
that God will be faithful to His promise. He has 
indeed already forgiven the sins of these disciples, 



182 THE TRANSFIGURING OF THE CROSS. 



and He will not go back on His words ; but some- 
thing more is needed. The forgiven or released 
sinner needs the impartation of a new life, one 
which will enable him to hold out as he goes 
through the wilderness to the promised land. 
The people of Israel were in need of help after 
they had been redeemed, and so we, after our 
conversion, must needs be fed with the bread of 
life, if we would successfully meet the obstacles 
and hindrances of the future. But even in Old 
Testament times the blood was defined as life ; so 
the blood of Jesus is in reality his life poured out 
for our advantage, as a sure token of the remis- 
sion of sins, — a thing which God has always been 
glad to do, and for which he needed no other in- 
citement than his measureless love. This life 
then is poured out for us, not instead of, and is 
received and appropriated, and when so received 
and appropriated is a source of spiritual strength, 
an assurance of forgiveness, and a pledge of rec- 
onciliation ; so that we can say, as Paul afterwards 
said, " He who spared not his own son, but gave 
him up to death for us all, how shall he not with 
him also freely give us all things ! " Now I wish 
to make one statement explicit which has been 
implicit in all this historical review. There is no 
break in the gospel between the incarnation and 
the crucifixion. We are not given one method 



THE CROSS IX DEVELOPMENT. 1S3 



of salvation up to the cross, only to find it useless 
when we reach that point. The life of our Lord 
is one consecutive life in wliich the vicarious 
element is always present, though there are de- 
velopments m accordance with experience, and in 
accordance with the needs of men. There is a 
predestined goal in the sense that the way in 
which Jesus walked inevitably led to it, but we 
feel that every step of the way was the way of 
freedom, and the way of obedience. The preach- 
ing in Galilee, the conversations in Judsea and 
in Samaria are all emphasized by the cross ; nay, 
we may even go back of this active ministry, 
and find in the cross the full explication of the 
descent of the Spirit at the time of the bap- 
tism, and earlier yet the aspiration of the di^dne 
boyhood, when in answer to the surprise of 
his parents he declared liimself to be about his 
Father's business. 

The one thing that gives us confidence in the 
doctrine of the cross as it appears in the teaching 
of Jesus is its complete harmony with all his life- 
work. Under such circumstances it does not seem 
to me important to frame any theory of the atone- 
ment. Such a matter may be left to scholastics, 
and perhaps no harm will come of it, if it only be 
clearly seen that any theory wliich posits an angry 
God who can only <■ be pacified with blood, or a 



184 THE TRANSFIGURING OF THE CROSS, 



Sovereign God who can be satisfied with a dra- 
matic display of the suffering of an innocent being 
under the guise of a criminal, is ruled out both 
by moral intuitions and ethical judgment. Such 
a theory, or any derivative from such a theory, 
makes the words and deeds of Jesus in his life- 
time an inconsistent medley, and throws over his 
last hours an impenetrable veil of mystery, and 
leaves us in doubt as to whether it was worth his 
while to take such a part in the drama of salva- 
tion. All that is precious in the self-sacrific- 
ing love of Jesus disappears when it is forced 
into a scheme for giving a legal satisfaction to 
Omnipotence. 

But happily no such alternative is necessary. 
Above all the theories which earnest men have 
set forth and in which some truth undoubtedly 
abides, there is the one supreme fact that the 
cross of Chiist has become a definite object of 
glory. Its transformation is the miracle of the 
ages. It is the sign of an infinite sacrifice and an 
infinite love. Its inscription in three languages 
marks the homage of Religion, of Intellect, and 
of Power. Jesus on the cross is the King of the 
world. His arms were outstretched there to 
receive the world. For those who have been 
saved by repentance and faith, and sanctified 
by the cleansing of the word of truth, the cross 

y 



THE CROSS IN DEVELOPMENT. 185 



points to a higher attainment yet, because only 
from the summit of Calvary can we behold the 
glory of the ascended Lord, and appreciate the 
motive which the writer to the Hebrews so 
clearly discerned when he bade us "run with 
patience the race set before us, looking unto 
Jesus the author and perfecter of the faith, who 
for the joy that luas set hefore him endured the 
cross, despising its shame." 



VIII. 

THE CROSS m REALIZATION. 



Let us beware of setting up at the cross a sort of oppo- 
sition between Jesus and God. In saving the world, by 
his sacrifice Jesus fulfils the purpose of his Father. There 
is nothing in his sufferings resembling a direct curse from 
God resting on himself. Jesus dies not as one of the lost ; 
all he knew of hell was the diabolical hatred which nailed 
him to the tree. — Pressense : Life of Jesus the Christ. 

To the Gentiles who led Jesus to death the circumstance 
was but an ordinary one ; to the leaders of the Jews who 
on the high feast of Easter delivered him to the shambles 
it was a festival of God and of men . But God was silent ; 
mourning or assenting, and wherefore assenting ? We can 
only guess. — Keim : Jesus of Nazareth. 

There is a tragedy in the torture of the crucifixion, and 
it speaks to an ancient pathos in our being. There is a 
love in the death, and it speaks to an original tenderness 
in us. There is a sacrifice in it, and it speaks to the pro- 
founder laws of our nature ; there is a sadness in it, and it 
speaks to us of the pain eternal in the universe ; there is a 
vicariousness in it, and we see the sorrow in which divine 
service for us is done. It reveals the horror and mystery 
of our sinfulness. The death of the Divine Man finds us 
in these primary parts. — Peyton's MemoraUlia. 



VIII. 



THE CROSS IN REALIZATION. 

Theij took Jesus therefore ; and he icent out hearing 
the cross for himself, unto the place called The 
place of a skull, which is called in Hebrew Gol- 
gotha : ivhere they crucified him, and with him 
two others, on either side one, and Jesus in the 
midst. And Pilate lurote a title also and pmt it 
on the cross. And there luas written^ Jesus of 
Nazareth, the King of the Jews. 

This title therefore read many of the Jeius : for the 
place ivhere Jesus luas crucified was nigh unto the 
city. And it was icritten in Hebrew and in Greek 
and in Latin. The chief priests of the Jews there- 
fore said to Pilate, Write not : The King of the 
Jews ; but that he said, I am the King of the 
Jews. Pilate answered. What I have written, I 
have written. — John xix. 17-22. 



" ^T^HEY took Jesus therefore." This un- 
J- doubtecUy expresses the fact, but the 
author of the . Fourth Gospel is very keen in his 
use of words, and knows well how to give a deep 
meaning to what appears as a commonplace deed. 



190 THE TRANSFIGURING OF THE CROSS. 



What he really says here is, " then they received 
Jesus." The same word is used in the beginning 
of this Gospel, where the author says of the Light 
which was coming into the world, " He came' unto 
his own and they that were his own received him 
not." Now at last his own have received him. 
They have received him from the hands of Pilate 
for death, but they have refused to receive him 
from God as the messenger and revealer of eternal 
life ; they have received him that they might 
put him to shame and load him with obloquy, 
but they have refused to receive him as one who 
would crown them with glory and honor. There 
is, therefore, in this expression of John a subtle 
irony which we can hardly afford to lose, since 
it prepares the way for that more pungent irony 
which Pilate heaped upon them when he ordered 
Jesus to be placed in the midst between two 
thieves, and then wrote the title of royalty which 
he ordered to be affixed to the cross on which 
Jesus was fastened : This is Jesus of Nazareth, 
the King of the Jews." 

Thus Pilate takes his revenge. He gives pre- 
eminence to Jesus, both by act and word. He 
thus brings down upon them the odium of treason 
against their king, and forces them to make good 
their words, " We have no king but Caesar ; " but 
he knows only too well that their profession of 



THE CROSS IN REALIZATION. 191 



loyalty to Caesar is as false as their malice toward 
Jesus is deep. 

When they sought to take off the edge of the 
sarcasm by demanding a change in the wording 
of the title, Pilate brusquely refused. " What I 
have written," he said, ''I have written." In his 
bitterness Pilate spoke better than he knew ; for 
that title was the logical culmination of unim- 
peachable history, and the sure prediction of a 
divine evolution. That writing, evanescent as it 
seemed, was the essence of the most permanent 
fact in the world. Written on a wooden tablet 
and affixed to a cross, it was destined to outlive 
every other writing of Pilate and to be more 
carefully remembered than any inscription on 
the palaces and temples wherein he lived and 
moved. The threefold inscription, though made 
only for convenience of information, is exceed- 
ingly significant. It shows not only the fact of 
the condemnation of Christ, but it presents ideally 
the three forces that were arrayed against him, 
and by a strange coincidence it also shows the 
sources from whence the Christ derived the 
means of his influence, and the sphere in which 
that influence will be finally and universally 
felt. 

The Hebrew inscription practically declares 
that there is a religious spirit which ignores and 



192 THE TRANSFIGURING OF THE CROSS. 



denies the kingship of Christ, and will do its 
utmost in bringing him to shame and death. It 
asserts the authority of Judaism against Chris- 
tianity. But there is another religious spirit in 
the world which finds the expression of its distant 
hope, and the fulfilment of its prophecy, in a 
spiritual rule whose authority is complete and 
perfect in Jesus of Nazareth, whom it acknowl- 
edges as the rightful King of the Jews, and the 
real King of men. 

The Greek inscription is the voice of Intellect, 
embodying the spirit of Mephistopheles, the denier 
and doubter, which pushes its way on toward the 
annihilation of faith within the province of reason, 
and refuses to acknowledge the spiritual and the 
eternal ; and therefore when it comes in contact 
with the clear truth and unequivocal mind of 
Jesus it finds itself out of sympathy with him, 
and utterly rejects him; but there is another 
utterance of Intellect which recognizes in Jesus 
the Logos, the Mind, or the Thought of God, and, 
desirous of finding a rational solution of the 
mysteries of earth and heaven, pushes its in- 
vestigations fearlessly forward, being enamored 
of truth and loving the light. It is the impulse 
of aspiration, the source of inspiration, the passion 
to know, and to realize all that makes for the 
advancement of learning, and all that lifts man- 



THE CROSS m REALIZATION. 193 

kind above the perishing brutes. As the Hebrew 
finds in Jesus its moral and spiritual ideal, so the 
Greek finds in him its intellectual ideal. 

The Latin inscription gives voice to certain so- 
cial instincts which tend to a lowering and level- 
ling to a lower point yet all humanity, and these 
instincts rule the mob that demands with heated 
violence that the man who stands for social order 
in righteousness and purity shall be crucified. 
"Away with such a fellow as Jesus from the 
earth " is the cry of the anarchist. On the other 
side, however, there is in the Latin inscription the 
recognition of the highest social instinct as it was 
displayed in Jesus, whose perfect humanity con- 
solidates and unifies the race, while at the same 
time it asserts unequivocally the inalienable right 
and duty of every man to realize himself, making 
" the very best of what God has made." 

Now, the question which arises is, How does 
it happen that so much is involved in this three- 
fold inscription? The answer is that the cross 
really represents all that is included in the con- 
flict between the forces of righteousness and sin, 
but it is so only because this particular cross bore 
and was borne by one who perfectly realized all 
its possibilities both of shame and triumph. 

I have already set before you the historical 
development of the cross in the life and teach- 

13 



194 THE TRANSFIGURING OF THE CROSS. 

ings of Jesus. , We have seen how every inci- 
dent in his life converged upon the cross as well 
when he was unconscious, as when he was con- 
scious of that goal. It now remains to be seen 
whether in the actual endurance of the cross 
he maintained without a break the way of his 
destiny. Some general observations confirmatory 
of what has already been set forth will lead up to 
a detailed examination of this point. 

On the eve of the crucifixion Jesus prayed: 
" Father, the hour is come ; glorify thy son, that 
thy son may glorify thee." Evidently then, ac- 
cording to this prayer, something was yet to be 
done. He had not yet attained; but he saw 
clearly the way of attainment. He was to be 
made perfect through suffering. The cross was 
the final suffering through which he must pass to 
reach the object of his desire. He must lose him- 
self in order to find himself. He must save 
others, though he cannot save himself. But the 
loss sustained by a redeemer in the work of re- 
demption is never reckoned by him as a loss. It 
is a gain, because whatever he parts with is some- 
thing perishable, evanescent, something he can- 
not keep for any great length of time, or use to his 
own advantage, though it may seem valuable to 
him; but what he receives as redeemed by his 
sacrifice is beyond all calculation in value, and 



THE CROSS m REALIZATION. 195 



beyond all the measure of sacrifice. It is this 
which puts down all theories of compensation, or 
substitution, or satisfaction as an explanation of 
the sacrifice. Great as the sacrifice may be, he 
who makes it gets more out of it than he would 
out of what he might retain were the sacrifice not 
made. If we speak of an infinite sacrifice we 
never think that the Infinite loses anything by it. 
The loss would be in not making it. Suppose a 
man were to see his friend, his wife, or his child 
in danger of drowning and put forth no effort to 
save them for fear of being drowned himself. 
What would his life be worth thereafter ? Sup- 
pose on the other hand he made the effort, and 
was successful, but that in consequence of his act 
he succumbed to the clutch of death. If he real- 
ized for one moment only that his sacrifice had 
won life for them, would he reckon his own life 
dear unto him ? Would he not rather say, " Their 
lives are a hundred times more precious than mine, 
and I count not myself a substitute as if my dying 
compensated their living, but I find a joy in dying 
which is above all price *' ? 

Now if I read the story of the crucifixion 
aright, I am sure that I shall find in it this idea 
that Jesus was willing not to save himself in 
order that he might save others ; and instead of 
thinking of himself as a costly ransom, he first 



196 THE TRANSFIGURING OF THE CROSS. 



of all had regard unto the immeasurable value 
of what would be obtained through his death. 
We judge of a deed by its motive. So in judg- 
ing of the sacrifice of Jesus we must find, if we 
can, the motive that impelled him to it. We 
must see why he did not take means to escape, 
why perhaps he did not summon in his defence 
those twelve legions of angels of which he once 
spoke. The general answer is that he was intent 
on carrying out his Father's will, although he 
prayed that if possible the cup might be removed 
from him. But this brings us to another ques- 
tion: "Why did the Father assent to this?" or 
putting it in stronger language, "Why did He 
demand it ? " This we cannot fully answer. 
There is a mystery here which we are unable to 
penetrate. We can affirm without any hesitation 
or doubt that whatever may be the reason, it can- 
not be inconsistent with the love of the Father 
for the Son. He needed not to be placated. 
There was no burning wrath in Him which could 
be quenched only in blood, no vengeance requir- 
ing to be appeased by the punishment of an inno- 
gent victim, and no fear lest without this death 
His righteous government should be overthrown. 
On the negative side, therefore we are clear. On 
the positive side we have no other recourse than 
to admit the mystery which both warns and com- 



THE CROSS IN REALIZATION. 197 



forts us with tlie assurance that the divine ways 
are higher than the ways of men, and the divine 
thought superior to expression in human words. 

But, taking the standpoint of Jesus, and re- 
membering that so far as revelation can be made 
he is the revelation of the Father, we may find a 
reply satisfactory to our moral intuitions and our 
intellectual integrity. The motive, then, which 
led to the sacrifice of himself lay in the con- 
sciousness of his power to redeem men from the 
bondage of sin, and to make clear the way of 
reconciling the world unto God. I am not now 
trying to account for this consciousness of power, 
but only to emphasize its actual existence, and to 
present it as an undoubted fact in his life. The 
testimony to tliis is unequivocal and certain. He 
took the position of one who forgave sins, long 
before the cross appeared as inevitable. "That 
ye may know," he says, "that the Son of Man 
hath power on the earth to forgive sins." He no 
doubt felt a thrill of joy in giving this assurance, 
but the consciousness of tliis power received a 
deeper impulse when the hour dawned in which 
he was to "make his soul an offering for sin." 
It was this which brought a sublime joy to his 
heart. Let us not forget that he was a man of 
sorrows and acquainted with grief, but let us not 
make the mistake of considering this sorrow as 



198 THE TRANSFIGURING OF THE CROSS. 



an element of weakness in his character. There 
is a sorrow which a man nurses to the depression 
of his spirit, which he cultivates until it makes 
him morbid, and the sight of it awakens in us 
a sense of piti/, which may easily turn into re- 
proach ; and there is another sorrow which a man 
bears with courage, and with a noble strife against 
its insidious pessimism, and the sight of this awak- 
ens in us a sense of sympathy^ which easily turns 
into high commendation and profound praise, 
since it reveals not the weakness of the man but 
his strength. It is this kind of sorrow which is 
pre-eminent in the life of our Lord, and the bitter 
trouble of soul which he experienced in the last 
visit that he made to the Temple, and in the awful 
shadows of Gethsemane, emphasizes its dignity, 
and forecasts the spirit with which he met the 
torture and death of the cross. That which ap- 
pears to us most certain is that when the sentence 
was finally passed which condemned him to suffer 
the most ignominious death that human ingenuity 
had devised, he looked upon his execution, not 
from the martyr's point of view, as a hard and 
cruel fate, but as a means, and the best means of 
perfecting himself, in order that he might accom- 
plish to the full the work which had been given 
him to do. Of other men it is said: " They die 
and leave their task unfulfilled," or " The work- 
man dies, but the work goes on." 



THE CROSS IN REALIZATION. 199 

We are not slow to admit that many a death 
has accomplished great things for the kingdom 
of righteonsness. It was said of Anne du Bourg 
that his death made more Huguenots in one day 
than all the ecclesiastical tribunals of France 
could slay in a year. Yet we can never quite 
get rid of the notion that death is an interrup- 
tion, a liindrance, and a sort of defeat, whenever 
it comes by the violence of men opposed to the 
truth. If there is, however, any denial of this, 
the whole force of the denial comes from the way 
in which Jesus met his death, for until he went 
before, showing the way, that path of glory was 
unknown. If the blood of the martyrs has in any 
way proved to be the " seed of the church," it is 
because the martyrs learned from him that the way 
of the cross is a royal way. So he made it, and 
so it remains and will remain. 

To fully appreciate this, we must follow Jesus 
to the cross and listen to what he says while 
enduring the agony of dying. I do not know 
that we can fully verify all the sayings he is 
reported to have uttered, but the spirit of these 
utterances is in complete accord with all that is 
authentic in what precedes. The realization of 
the cross is what one might logically expect from 
its anticipation. As I look at it, the entire course 
of the ministry of Jesus from first to last forms 



200 THE TRANSFIGURING OF THE CROSS. 

one harmonious doctrine, and no change was 
made in his method of securing the end for 
which he came into the world. Did he then 
perish as a victim, or did he die as the conscious 
Victor of the world ? 

We know well how he bore himself during the 
double trial. Neither the Sanhedrin with Caia- 
plias at their head as prosecutor, nor the Roman 
court with Pilate as judge, was able to disturb 
the calm serenity of his soul. Threats did not 
intimidate, mockery did not humiliate, and scourg- 
ing did not break his spirit, or weaken his self- 
estimate. He spoke when speech was of any 
avail ; he was silent when silence was more 
weighty than words. His bearing was that of 
a king who knew that no outward disgrace, no 
infliction of shame, could impeach his kingship. 
When he heard the sentence that condemned him, 
it was as one who reckons the world's judgment 
as Heaven's decree of approval. It oj)ened to 
him the gate of desire. He had before said, " 1 
have a baptism to be baptized with, and how am 
I straitened until it be accomplished." The 
barriers to that baptism were now removed, and 
the event for which he longed was at hand. The 
word was given : " Take ye him and crucify him." 
Then began the march to the cross. The soldiers 
laid upon him the instrument of torture. With 



THE CROSS IN REALIZATION. 201 



slow and painful steps lie moves tlirougli tKe 
streets of the city which had been called Zion, 
the city of God, the habitation of the ]Most High. 
A brutal crowd surround and follow him. Women 
too are in the throng, but their natures are touched 
by his suffering, and they break forth into lamen- 
tations. The cross proves too heavy for his 
strength. Weakened by torture and long absti- 
nence from food, he faints and falls beneath the 
load. A passer by is seized and compelled to 
bear the cross. The lamentations of the women 
are stirred afresh by this sight. Among tliem are 
those who have listened to liis gracious words, 
and shared in his ministrations of mercy. They 
see how hopeless would be any attempt at rescue. 
So their grief manifests itself in cries of pity. 
But Jesus does not accept this pity. He does 
not ask to be delivered from tliis suffering, be- 
cause he is conscious that it is the means whereby 
he will complete his mission of salvation. Not 
he. but they who weep and lament are the ones 
who need compassion. They haA^e entirely mis- 
taken his spirit if they think that weeping over 
him will aid him. So he turns and addresses 
tliem in words they vnl\ never forget: Daugh- 
ters of Jerusalem, weep not for me, but weep for 
yourselves and your children. For behold the 
days are coming in which tliey shall say, Blessed 



202 THE TRANSFIGURING OF THE CROSS. 

are the barren, and the wombs that never bare, / 
and the breasts that never gave suck." 

In this address there is the dignity of a con- 
scions self-sufficiency, and also the largest self- 
effacement. It is the paradox of life and love. 
In this via dolorosa., he is the Anointed One, the 
King whose supreme rights the world challenges 
in vain. In his own Passion there is no evil; 
the evil is all in the passion of those who have 
inflicted the wrong. He is in fact escaping the 
desolation which is hastening upon them. With 
unhindered vision he sees what is now hidden 
from their eyes. The glorious city is celebrating 
its Paschal Feast, and the story of Israel's redemp- 
tion from Egyptian bondage is being rehearsed 
in many a family ; but in rejecting him who came 
to make that redemption real, the people have 
sold themselves into a bondage whose terms shall 
make them cry out unto the mountains : " Fall 
on us; and to the hills. Cover us." Here is 
reason for weeping compared with which his own 
sufferings are nought. 

The significance of this passage is in its har- 
mony with the whole course of his life. In the 
bold, calm, and dignified refusal to accept the 
pity so profusely offered we see the same inherent 
power which was manifested when he said, " Come 
unto Me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden." 



THE CROSS IN REALIZATION, 203 



It is a supreme emphasis laid on his own might 
to save others. If in the garden he shrank from 
drinking the cup, there is no shrinking now. He 
is fortified by his purpose, and he will go to the 
end and prove himself to be the source and foun- 
tain of a compassion whose contents will not be 
exhausted until he has seen of the travail of his 
soul. Animated by a supreme joy, we may think 
of him as under the blessing of God, but it is im- 
possible to believe that he was under his curse. 

The journey ended, the cruel work of execu- 
tion begins. Soon the cross is raised aloft, the 
title is affixed thereto, and before his eyes his 
garments are distributed, as if he were already 
dead. It seems like the crowning indignity of 
all, but worse yet remains. In accordance with 
custom the soldiers had offered him a stupefying 
drink, but he had refused it. Thus his ears were 
open to the jibes and taunts and insults that were 
heaped upon him by the rulers and scribes and 
priests who had gathered to triumph over him in 
his helpless agony. But no scorn could make him 
forget the mission he came to perform, and what 
is still more important, no suffering could make 
him lose sight of the loving heart of God. They 
who tell us that the death of Jesus was necessary 
to remove a reluctance on God's part to forgive 
sinners, or to appease his vengeance, mil find it 



204 THE TRANSFIGURING OF THE CROSS. 



somewhat difficult, I think, to explain that prayer 
for these bitter enemies, who had succeeded in 
their evil work : " Father, forgive them, for they 
know not what they do." In view of all that 
they had done, in view of their opportunity for 
knowing who he was, and why he had come to 
them, we find it hard to see how this plea of 
ignorance is valid. Yet this seems to be a remi- 
niscence of that lament which he had once uttered 
over the city : " If thou hadst known in this day, 
even thou, the things that belong unto peace ! 
but now they are hid from thine eyes." This 
blindness Jesus had recognized all through his 
ministry, and it had ever excited his compassion. 
He had sowed good seed, and some of it had 
fallen on the wayside, and some of it on stony 
ground, and so his work had failed. He had 
come again and again to Jerusalem, but " she 
knew not the time of her visitation." Therefore 
he seems to admit that in the blindness and sin of 
the times in which he came there was something 
inevitable, which, while it did not excuse the 
people, was nevertheless a reason for the exercise 
of divine clemency. There is a mystery in sin 
as well as in holiness. When we attempt to trace 
its origin, we find ourselves quickly involved in 
contradictions from which there appears to be no 
outlet satisfactory to the logical understanding. 



THE CROSS IN REALIZATION. 



205 



Here, however, it stands as an nnimpeachable fact, 
and we have to reckon with it, and God reckons 
with it. But the remarkable thing is that Jesus 
should make this particular plea. Yet what is it 
more than an exemplification of his own teaching 
that we should " pray for our enemies, and bless 
them that despitefully use us and persecute us " ? 
Was the prayer of ths sufferer answered? Luke 
tells us that when the awful scene was over, the 
multitudes who came with laughter and railing 
and scorn, ''when they beheld the things that 
were done, returned smiting their breasts." Was 
this a wave of penitence which swept over them ; 
and did they come at last to a knowledge of what 
they had done, and thus prepare themselves for 
the forgiveness so ardently and tenderly sought 
on their behalf ? Let us hope at least that the 
prayer did not utterly fail. 

Luke relates another incident which lends an 
added force to our contention that the cross is a 
natural climax to the mission of Jesus, and not 
a tiling to be considered apart from his whole 
life. 

Pilate had ordered two robbers to be crucified 
with Jesus, and the soldiers had placed them one 
on each side of him. It cannot be doubted that 
this was gratifying to the Jews. They had the 
satisfaction at least of seeing him associated in 



206 THE TRANSFIGURING OF THE CROSS. 

death with men of undoubted villainy. The 
record would go down that he perished with 
law-breakers and rebels. But a strange thing 
happens. The chief victim even in death does 
not lose his sense of victor. Even there he 
claims and makes good his early teaching: 
" Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the 
kingdom of heaven." One of these malefactors 
seems to be in sympathy with the mocking crowd. 
He sees no retribution in his own suffering, and 
no justice in its execution. He desires nothing 
else than escape from penalty. " Art thou not 
the Christ? then save thyself and us I " This is 
his demand. But the other, knowing well that 
Jesus has never been implicated in their plots, 
nor a party to any evil deed, and feeling that the 
law has not been unrighteous in its execution of 
him and his comrade, reminds him that they are 
all under the same condemnation, " but we," he 
says, indeed justly ; for we receive the due re- 
ward of our deeds ; but this man hath done noth- 
ing amiss." Here then is sincere repentance, the 
very condition which Jesus had made of coming 
into the kingdom of heaven ; or it was humility, 
or poverty of spirit, another and accompanying 
essential to entering the kingdom. On the basis 
of this confession the poor man makes his plea : 
"Lord, remember me when thou comest in thy 



THE CROSS IN REALIZATION. 207 



kingdom." We need not discuss here the precise 
meaning which this robber attached to tlie words 
he used. He perhaps had seen the title placed 
over the cross of Jesus, or he had heard the title 
of king insultingly applied to him. In some 
sense he must have conceived of the kingship 
of Jesus, and felt an attraction toward him. And 
Jesus on his part must have felt that the assur- 
ance he once expressed of drawing all men unto 
him, if he should be lifted up from the earth, was 
in the beginning of its realization. The answer 
which Jesus makes to the prayer of the robber is 
perfectly consistent with his repeated claim of 
being able to open the kingdom of heaven to 
all believers : " Thou shalt be with me in Para- 
dise this day." That is the promise of a king on 
his throne, and not of a man under the shame of 
condemnation, and consciously bearing the wrath 
of God. It is not only a word of pardon, but it 
is a word of restoration. For some of us who 
are a long time in repenting, and a long time in 
doing works meet for repentance, it may seem 
like an exceptional privilege; but instead of 
grumbling at it as some do, let us be glad that 
the poor robber so soon exchanged his terrible 
misery for eternal bliss. And yet let no one 
imitating him venture to put off the day of re- 
pentance to the last, hoping that he may then 



208 THE TRANSFIGURING OF THE CROSS. 



get access to heaven ; for the case of this robber 
stands alone in history, and furnishes at the best 
only a theoretical hope. 

There is still another saying to which I wish 
to call brief attention. It affords little or no aid 
in explaining the motive which Jesus had in 
offering himself, but it shows as clearly as any 
other his thoughtfulness and his appreciation of 
past care and present love. It will always be 
difficult for us to take in the full measure of the 
relation which existed between Jesus and Mary 
his mother. The maternal heart, deeply immersed 
in the passion and mystery of motherhood, can 
alone enter into that sacred experience. The 
filial heart which has never forgotten the repose 
of a mother's breast, which has never swerved in 
its loyalty, or brought unnecessary anxiety to the 
mother's soul, can alone understand how Jesus 
loved his mother. But there have been no women 
who have reached the beatitude of Mary's mother- 
hood, and no sons who have reached the stature 
of Jesus' filial obedience and affection. Yet every 
woman in whose heart exists a maternal ideal, 
and every man in whose breast exists an ideal of 
sonship, will find in the scene at the cross a won- 
drous revelation of this ideal. They will behold 
there a sorrow too deep for outward lamentation, 
an agony too great for audible complaint, for here 



THE CROSS IN REALIZATION. 209 



was a desolation tliat does not admit of descrip- 
tion. The narrator leaves all to our imagination 
and contents himself with the simple declaration, 
a thousand-fold pathetic by its omissions, But 
there were standing by the cross of Jesus, his 
mother, and his mother's sister, Mary the wife of 
Cleopas, and Mary Magdalene." This is all, and 
nothing can be added. We do not need the 
• music of Palestrina, or of Haydn, or of Gounod 
to deepen the impression made by this silence. 
In the answer made by J esus to this unutterable 
appeal of agony we see him again forgetful of 
self, and anxious only to bring some comfort to 
that pierced heart. " When Jesus, therefore, saw 
his mother and the disciple standing by whom 
he loved, he saith unto his mother, Woman, 
behold thy son ! Then saith he to the disciple. 
Behold thy mother! " 

If in the address to the robber we find an 
expression of conscious divinity, in this last ad- 
dress to his earthly friends we see the very ful- 
ness of humanity, and in the tenderness thus 
revealed we can only say, " Was ever mother so 
blessed with such a son? Was ever son so 
blessed with such a mother?" 

It is pertinent, however, to ask whether, with 
such an expression on his dying lips, is it pos- 
sible to believe that Jesus felt the wrath of God 

14 



210 THE TRANSFIGURING OF THE CROSS. 



abiding on him ? Or that he was then undergo- 
ing a penal affliction as one guilty of the sins of 
the world ? 

There still remains for consideration four other 
sayings uttered on the cross. In the mean time 
let us think over these events in the Passion of 
our Lord. They will furnish food for abundant 
reflection, and I think that if we will pay heed to 
them as authoritative indications from Jesus him- 
self of the meaning and purpose of his death, we 
shall find in them, not only an appeal to our 
moral intuitions and our reason, but also to our 
emotions, or religious feelings, and we shall not 
then wonder how the preaching of the cross was 
the power and the wisdom of God, and how by 
means of it unbelievers were touched with a 
mighty persuasion, and believers found in it the 
emphasis of their assurance that their sins were 
forgiven, their lives cleansed, and their souls fed 
by a spiritual participation in the body of Jesus 
given for them, and in the blood poured out for 
their advantage. And as our perception of this 
truth becomes clear, shall we not also find our 
salvation nearer than when we believed ? I think 
so. We still talk about bearing our cross, and 
we count it as an irksome and painful and humili- 
ating burden. But when we have once beheld 
its transfiguration, and seen its glory made in- 



THE CROSS IN REALIZATION. 211 



effable by the precious weigkt it bore when Jesus 
was fastened thereon, wlien we come to see how 
his suffering was not to induce a reluctant God 
to pardon us, but rather to make his willingness 
more apparent, then we may perhaps rise to the 
ecstasy of the great apostle who counted no joy 
so great as entering into the fellowship of his 
sufferings, becoming conformed unto his death. 
The way of the cross is a royal way for a King 
hath traversed it. The sarcasm of his enemies is 
his highest encomium : " He saved others ; himself 
he cannot save." 



IX. 

THE CROSS IN TRANSFIGURATION. 



But we behold him, even Jesus, for the suffering of 
death crowned with glory and honor. — Heb. ii. 9. 

" God has forsaken us," we say. Do we say so and not 
recall the words which fell in the great victory on Calvary, 
fell from the Conqueror's lips, " My God, my God, why 
hast thou forsaken me ! " Blackness of darkness and 
despair, and feebleness sinking without a stay, — these 
are not failure. In these characters was written first the 
charter of our deliverance ; these are the characters in 
which it is renewed. — Hinton : The Mystery of Pain. 

When thou hadst overcome the sharpness of death, 
thou didst open the kingdom of heaven to all believers. — 
Te Deum Laudamus. 

One of the most striking effects produced by this 
picture is the sense of loneliness. You behold Christ 
deserted both in heaven and earth ; that despair is in 
him which wrung forth the saddest utterance man ever 
made, " Why hast thou forsaken me ! " Even in this 
extremity, however, he is still divine. The great and 
reverent painter has not suffered the Son of God to be 
merely an object of pity, though depicting him in a state 
so profoundly pitiful. He is as much and as visibly our 
Redeemer, there bound, there fainting and bleeding from 
the scourge, as if he sat on his throne of glory in the 
heavens. In this matchless picture the painter has done 
more towards reconciling the incongruity of Divine Om- 
nipotence and outraged suffering Humanity, combined in 
one person, than the theologians ever did. — Marble 
Faun. 

Thou takest not away, Death ! 
Thou strikest ; Absence perisheth ; 

Indifference is no more. 
The future brightens on the sight ; 
For on the past has fallen a light, 

That tempts us to adore. 

Guesses at Truth. 

Is this the Face that thrills with awe 
Seraphs who veil their face above ? 
Is this the Face without a flaw, 
The Face that is the Face of love? 
Yea, this defaced, a lifeless clod, 
Hath all creation's love sufficed, 
Hath satisfied the love of God, 
This Face, the Face of Jesus Christ. 

Christina Rosetti. 



IX. 



THE CROSS IN TRANSFIGURATION. 

It is finished. — John xix : 30. 

VERY much has been written about the seven 
sayings on the cross, but I do not know 
that any better analysis of them has been made 
than that which Principal Fairbairn gives. He 
says that three of these were uttered "in the 
earlier stages, when the tide of life was still 
strong ; four in the later while life was painfully 
ebbing away. The first concern his relations to 
men and the world he is leaving, the second con- 
cern his relations to God and the world he was 
entering. Together they show us how Christ in 
liis supreme moment was related to God and 
man." 

I would simply add to this that the first three 
sayings represent ideally the continuing self-for- 
getfulness of Jesus combined with a consciousness 
of power to fully accomplish his mission as the 
Messiah of God. His prayer to the Father for 
the forgiveness of those who are inflicting upon 



216 THE TRANSFIGURING OF THE CROSS. 



him this awful misery and physical pain; his 
sublime promise to the penitent robber answering 
to the sublime faith of the man in the actual 
kingship of Jesus ; his giving over to the beloved 
disciple the care of his mother, are alike in their 
self-effacement and in their consciousness that 
he can open even at that time the kingdom of 
heaven to all believers. He still maintains the 
dignity which he manifested in the trial. We 
see him despising the shame and yet enduring all 
its torture. The cross cannot impair the great- 
ness and perfection of his divine manhood. For 
in accepting the inevitable it was not as one who 
sullenly or stoically meets a hard fate, but as one 
who recognizes in it a mysterious and yet sure 
dispensation of God. From our knowledge of 
his resources we are certain that he could have 
avoided all this suffering, and successfully defied 
the machinations of the priests, the scheme of 
the betrayer, the might of the Roman power as 
it was vested in Pilate, the fierceness and un- 
reasonableness of the mob instigated by the par- 
tisan efforts of the priests and the scribes, and 
that even at the last moment while on the way 
to the cross he could have asserted himself as he 
once did in the Temple, and so have escaped, but 
this would have been a repudiation of his Messiah- 
ship, and a denial of his own principles. Such 



THE CROSS IN TRANSFIGURATION. 217 



a temporal victory would have ended in an eternal 
defeat. This is apparent in the first hours of the 
crucifixion. There is perfect acquiescence in the 
will of God, perfect trust in his goodness, perfect 
confidence that the cross is the hard but sure 
way to a kingdom and crown. These three say- 
ings are not the utterance of one who deems that 
his cause is lost, or that it is even suffering a 
momentary eclipse. They are as certain in their 
outlook, as positive in their sense of inherent 
power, as those which he uttered when upon the 
mount of beatitudes. But how is it with the 
other sayings which followed these ? Is there in 
the cry of " I thirst," and of " My God, my God, 
why hast thou forsaken me ! " a real yielding of 
the kingly spirit and a surrender to a comfortless 
despair ? Or shall we go further yet and say that 
this thirst and this sense of forsakenness was the 
result of the divine wrath poured out upon him, 
in order that God might be " politically" appeased, 
and " governmentally " or "legally" justified? 
This is the conclusion to which certain theo- 
logical speculations lead us ; but before we accept 
what seems so impossible let us see if there be not 
a more rational explanation of these utterances. 

In regard to the first, I think we may take it as 
the natural expression of a physical condition. 
Jesus had been suspended upon the cross for 



218 THE TRANSFIGUBING OF THE CROSS. 



some hours. It is not necessary to enter into 
any detail of the horrible and ever increasing 
pain of this execution. The inflammation of the 
wounds, the checking of the flow of the blood 
in the extended limbs, and its congestion in heart 
and brain, would produce a feverishness of inde- 
scribable intensity. It was this physical suffering 
that extorted from him the cry, " I thirst." It is 
the only utterance of bodily pain that ever es- 
caped his lips, and it seems to have aroused the 
sympathy of some that stood by, for in answer 
they took a sponge and dipped it in the common 
sour wine of the country, and placing it on a 
branch of hyssop, they put it to his mouth. He 
did not refuse it, as he had before refused the 
narcotic which was first offered him. It may be 
that he felt the kindliness of the motive that 
prompted the act, and took it as the last favor 
that could bestowed upon him. Yet in taking it 
he fulfilled an ancient description of the suffering 
servant of God, as written in the 69th Psalm: 
" In my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink." 
It need hardly be said, that this was done in 
order that the Scripture might be fulfilled, but 
the writer of this Gospel, steeped as he was in 
the knowledge of the Old Testament, is right in 
finding in this and other coincidences the historic 
fulfilment of the prophetic ideal. It is, however, 



THE CROSS IN TRANSFIGURATION. 219 



the next utterance that demands our most serious 
consideration. In this cry which is a quotation 
from the twenty-second Psalm, did Jesus mean to 
express the position which God had taken toward 
him, or was it the utterance of his own feeling 
toward God? 

In answering this, we must abide by the con- 
stant and unchanging teaching of Jesus respect- 
ing God. He had told his disciples in the early 
part of his ministry that God cared for His chil- 
dren with a peculiar care. " Not a sparrow," he 
said, " falls to the ground without your Father's 
notice," and even " the hairs of your head are all 
numbered." He had told them to give no anx- 
ious thought to the future, for God, who cared 
for the birds of the air and the grass of the field, 
would certainly not fail in his protection of them. 
Through all his ministry he taught, and never 
ceased to teach, that which the apostle John 
afterwards embodied in a concise and all embrac- 
ing definition, " God is love." As regards him- 
self, he had affirmed that he had come a messenger 
of salvation into the world, by the commandment 
of God. All that he did was done by the divine 
ordering. "I can do nothing of myself," he said, 
but what the Father telleth me that I do." 
Every moment of his life he was conscious of 
the divine presence. Every act of his life was 



220 THE TRANSFIGURING OF THE CROSS. 



an act of God. It was God who had sent him into 
Galilee, and God who had sent him to Jerusalem. 
The whole of his going, from the Incarnation, was 
the prescribed pathway of the divine will. Nay, 
in the ecstasy of his union with God, in the ful- 
ness of his willingness to be obedient, he declared 
that " for this cause I came into the world," as 
one who had left a region of glory for a place of 
humiliation. It was God who had directed him 
to Gethsemane, and the trial before Caiaphas, and 
also before Pilate. It was God who had bidden 
him bear the cross and be borne on it. If then 
it was the divine will that he should be sacrificed, 
no place is left for the divine wrath toward him, 
unless the doing of the divine will is a reason for 
the exercise of the divine wrath. Such a suppo- 
sition, however, is contrary to all the facts. 

But did he himself succumb to the feeling that 
God had departed from him ? If he did not, then 
this is no real expression, but only a make-believe. 
But we cannot tolerate a make-believe on his part, 
any more than we can on God's part. If this is 
an acted tragedy and not a real one,' then it is 
the worst thing that ever happened in this world. 
But I think that we can understand its reality if 
we look at it in the light of facts. Nothing is 
more certain than that while he made use of 
extraordinary power in behalf of others he never 



THE CROSS IN TRANSFIGURATION. 221 



made use of it for himself. For all men he was 
more than man, for himself he was always less 
than for others. He gave release to men bound 
with devilish chains, but he would not loosen 
himself from the bonds which held him to suffer- 
ing and death. Taking upon himself the common 
lot of man, he would do nothing that might lift 
him above that which is incident to every man. 
Hence we feel that in the hour of mortal agony 
he bore what all men must bear, the sense of 
desolation, the fear which underlies every hope, 
the pain of parting from loved ones, the dread 
of darkness and the ruthless separation from all 
the desires, ambitions, and aspirations of life. 
Now if this had been left out of the experience 
of Jesus he would not have been what he was, 
the complete expression of humanity. This de- 
spairing cry : " My God, why hast thou forsaken 
me ! " uttered in the extremity of his suffering, 
is just that which identifies him perfectly with 
humanity, and forever disposes of that heresy 
which maintains that the human life of Jesus 
was only a mere semblance and not a real and 
veritable thing. 

But we find a still deeper reason for this cry 
when we come to consider the purpose for which 
Jesus came. It was his mission to deliver men 
from sin, to set them free from its bondage, and 



222 THE TRANSFIGURING OF THE CROSS. 



to give them assurance of pardon, and reconcilia- 
tion, and sanctification. That such a mission 
should be disregarded, and that the messenger 
himself should meet with such a fate, must have 
been a tremendous trial to faith, but if one may 
speak comparatively on this subject, it must have 
been a still greater trial to his love. God's love 
for the world had sent him to the world that men 
might not perish but have everlasting life. His 
own love was immeasurable, and he had built 
upon it as the one thing that should save the 
world. But this love had been rejected. The 
rejection of this love deepened his sense of the 
power of sin, and as that deepened it would 
naturally increase his hopelessness of the rescue 
he had attempted. It must not be forgotten here 
how much that rescue contemplated ; it was not 
simply to make men better, it was to make them 
good. It was not content with an outward re- 
formation, but it looked to an inward regenera- 
tion. He had made himself the standard. He 
had bidden men to follow him, to come to him, 
to accept his words, to take to themselves his 
own life, to feed upon him, and to grow up into 
him. Now it seemed as if between his actual 
success and his goal there was all the measure- 
less extent that there is between failure and 
attainment. He had done his part, but the prince 



THE CROSS IN TRANSFIGURATION. 223 

of this world had been too much for him, and now 
he was entering into death, and it may be that to 
him as to others who have experienced the first 
pangs of death thare came in an instant the flash 
which lightened and revealed the \yhole of his 
life and all that he had done, and he saw then 
the utter inutility of what he had wrought, for 
if now and then he had cast out some devils, what 
was this in comparison with the power of hell 
which was now triumphing over him ? Had he 
in any way broken the reigning power of sin, 
had he prevented the enemy from sowing tares, 
and reaping a harvest of evil ? Had he not rather 
provoked a greater evil and put mankind under 
a heavier guilt, for if he had not come, would 
they have had sin? 

I know that it may seem vain thus to look into 
the mind of Christ, but our own experiences 
point to some such revelation. We know that 
in proportion to the purity of our motives is our 
humiliation in case of failure. To fail when we 
have done the best we can, is an evidence of two 
tilings : our own weakness and the strength of 
the opposition which has been made to our en- 
deavor. One would be slow in applying this 
test to Jesus, but Paul distinctly tells us that 
"he was crucified tlirough weakness," and I 
really see no other explanation of this despairing 



224 THE TRANSFIGURING OF THE CROSS. 



cry than that it was the utterance of his own sense 
of weakness, though I do not believe that even 
then he wholly let go of the divine hand, for his 
cry is not addressed to an abstraction, but to a 
living personal Being with whom he still holds 
definite relations. It is "My God, my God" to 
whom he appeals. No sense of being forsaken, 
however deep that sense may be, can involve a 
complete cutting off, so long as the feeling of 
personal possession still remains. If in this cry 
we recognize a remembrance of the twenty-second 
Psalm we may well believe that even this cry of 
despair did not wholly blot out another sentiment 
in the same psalm, " For he hath not despised nor 
abhorred the affliction of the afflicted, neither hath 
he hid his face from him, but when he cried unto 
him he heard him." Reckoning, however, at its 
fullest extent the despair which may have filled 
the mind of Jesus in this moment of torture, we 
cannot believe that God turned a deaf ear toward 
him, or that for a single instant he looked with 
wrath upon his well-beloved Son, or that in any 
sense he conceded that he was a sinner justly 
suffering a penalty in the sinner's stead. 

Whether this idea subsequently derived from 
a consideration of the death of Jesus is true or 
not has no place in this discussion. It certainly 



THE CROSS IN TRANSFIGURATION. 225 

does not appear as a legitimate inference from 
anything in the historical record. 

The lesson that grows out of this agonizing cry 
needs no such interpretation for its justification. 
It is enough for us to know that Jesus was not 
exempt from the deepest pang that can riye a 
human heart, and that in that exceeding sorrow 
God was still faithful to him. For the divine 
mercy made the anguish short. The awful gloom 
was dispelled. In the dense darkness a light 
shone resplendent and clear. Though he was 
going through the valley of the shadow of death 
God was with him. His Father would not for- 
sake him. When the bitter cry burst from his 
lips there was straightway an answer, and im- 
mediately the full vision of his everlasting and 
uninterrupted love was restored to the sufferer. 

The full statement of this fact was made after- 
wards by the unknown writer of the letter to the 
Hebrews in a passage of wonderful significance. 

Representing Jesus as a priest, not after the 
temporary order of Aaron, but after the eternal 
and ideal order of Melchisedec, he speaks of him 
as one " who in the days of his flesh offered up 
prayers, with strong crying and tears, unto him 
that was able to save him from death, and having 
been heard for his godly fear, though he was a Son, 
yet learned obedience by the things which he 

15 



226 THE TRANSFIGURING OF THE CROSS. 



suffered ; and having been made perfect, he be- 
came unto all that obey him the author of eternal 
salvation." 

The answer which God made to that cry of 
despair is involved in the next word which Jesus 
uttered : " Father, into thy hands I commend 
my spirit." This is sublime trust ; it shows 
how transitory was his despair, how eternal was 
his hope. In that word the light of the divine 
countenance illumines the face of Jesus and we 
can almost see the smile with which he departs, 
hastening to the glory which he feels is prepared 
for him. Now he can say with perfect truth, " It 
is finished." God has indeed not forsaken him ; 
nay, he has given him assurance that his death is 
no failure, but it is the consummation of his work, 
the seal that evidences all that goes before, and 
assures us that he, in giving his soul an offering 
for sin, will sui'ely see of the travail of his soul and 
be satisfied. When Jesus bowed his head and 
gave up the ghost the work of sacrifice was done ; 
the last requirement laid upon him in his incar- 
nation within the realm of the physical world was 
fulfilled, the supreme act of obedience was com- 
pleted, and the way of reaching man's highest 
destiny was completely exemplified. Some fur- 
ther light is shed upon this act of self-sacrificing 
love by the letters of Paul, and Peter, and John, 



THE CROSS IN TRANSFIGURATION. 227 



but it is a light which intensifies the fundamental 
principles wliich have already been enunciated, 
without giving a different view, and above all, not 
a contradictory view of what has been presented. 

In these letters we find such terms as atone- 
ment, reconciliation, propitiation, and justification 
frequently used, but all these terms contain no 
more than the corresponding terms used by J esus, 
such as conversion, repentance, forgiveness, and 
sanctification. The only difference is that the 
former have an apparently forensic atmosphere, 
while the latter have a spiritual atmosphere ; the 
former are used in teclniical theologic specula- 
tion, while the latter are employed in practical 
religious instruction, exhortation, and edification. 
They all have their right places, and we cannot 
well do without them ; but it is evident that in 
considering the actual teaching of our Lord, and 
in setting forth only what he himself has endorsed 
in speech and act, we must limit ourselves to the 
record of his life and teaclung. And this is what 
I have attempted to do. I have sought to present 
the Trial and the Condemnation and Death of 
Jesus in the light which fell upon these things 
at the time they were enacted. I have not been 
wholly successful because one cannot free himself 
entirely from subjective influences, but I shall be 
well content if I have fairly impressed upon you 



228 THE TRANSFIGURING OF THE CROSS. 



the purpose I have had in view. I have been de- 
sirous to give force to a common expression, but 
a weighty one, " to get back to Christ." I am 
aware that tlie idea involved in this expression 
has been greatly criticised because it has seemed 
to reflect on all subsequent theology ; but I appre- 
liend that the theology which cannot rest upon 
this foundation will prove to be evanescent in 
spite of its antiquity, and that the new theology, 
if it should be found standing upon the life and 
words of the Son of Man, will more than justify 
itself to the antiquarian, as having not only a 
hopeful and enduring future, but a past which is 
immutable, since it is the occasion " of removing 
those things that are shaken, as of things that 
are made, that those things which cannot be 
shaken may remain." In concluding this series 
of sermons I will not in formal terms recapitulate 
what I have attempted to say, but will endeavor 
to set forth briefly the general underlying thought 
which lias governed them. 

The mission of Jesus is based upon the assump- 
tion that man is alienated from God by wicked 
works, and is in a state of insubordination to 
law. He is therefore bound to reap what he 
has sowed. But this alienation, whatever may 
be its origin, continues because he has no right 
conception of God, and no appreciation of the 



THE CROSS IN TRANSFIGURATION. 229 



real benefits arising from a loyal and free-hearted 
obedience. Jesus on coming into the world 
meets this fact. He sees humanity sick unto 
death. He sees men scattered as sheep without 
a shepherd, the prey of ravening Avolves and 
dogs. He sees them bound with the fetters of 
sin, and in the grasp of an evil tjo^ant. He sees 
them filled with pride, hypocrisy, avarice, and 
lust. He sees them burdened with poverty, and 
ground beneath the heel of the oppressor. The 
world is sadly out of joint. There is no efficient 
remedy for the diseases of the soul or the dis- 
asters of the mind. Self sits on the throne of the 
world, and that throne is the centre of anarchy, 
and the source of a corruption which is manifold 
in its power of reproduction. It was a loveless 
world, and, so far as any right conception is 
concerned, it was a Godless world. The three 
national forces with which Jesus came in contact 
when he began his ministry were all of them 
going from bad to worse. There was no love 
in the Jewish commonwealth, no faith in the 
Roman empire, and no hope in the Greek com- 
munity. The prophets of Israel had ceased to 
speak, and their ancient teachings were practic- 
ally discarded. The name of Moses even only 
served as a rallying cry for a partisan spirit. 
The gods of Rome had faded into myths without 



230 THE TRANSFIGURING OF THE CROSS. 



meaning and fables without a moral. The oracles 
of Greece were dumb or served only as subjects 
of a comedy of errors. Over all the world there 
was a nominal peace, but it was a peace in which 
there was no true prosperity. The gates of the 
temple of Janus were shut, but the gates of the 
fortress of Giant Despair were wide open. Even 
the little children in the market-places found 
amusement in the gruesome play at funerals and 
waxed wrathy over the failure of their compan- 
ions to properly respond to their lamentations, 
and when tired of this they made sport of mar- 
riage, reckoning it at no higher value than a game 
to be played. Religion at that time manifested 
itself in torn garments, in pretended fastings, 
and disfiguration of the countenance, or in elabo- 
rate ritual, and hollow though splendid ceremoni- 
alism. Politics was a game played with concealed 
daggers, and carried on by bands of conspirators. 
Society, from the court of the emperor down to 
the peasant's hut, was marked by utter disregard 
of every sacred relation. The virgin of Israel 
had taken her place beside the meretrices of 
Rome, and the hetaerae of Greece. At social 
banquets the inconvenient guest was disposed 
of with poisoned wine, and his death was looked 
upon as a practical joke. The old days when 
men believed in immortality and in righteousness 



THE CROSS IN TRANSFIGURATION. 231 



of conduct had long passed away, and friends 
marked the tombstones of their dead with cheap 
Aviticisms or rollicking verses. 

In the Greco-Roman Avorld the pauper was 
despised and treated with barbarity or unsympa- 
thizing charity, and the most religious sect of 
the Jews did not hesitate to rob the widow and 
the orphan, and coyer the deed witli an orthodox 
creed. 

Tills was the world to which Jesus came, and 
although he did not perhaps meet with all this 
vileness in its outward forms, it was in the atmo- 
sphere he breathed, and no just conception of his 
mission can be obtained, and no vindication of his 
method can be complete without taking this into 
account. The world was against him from the 
very start. In its wisdom it had declared that 
man could only attain the goal of his desire by 
following the inclinations of the flesh and living 
to self alone. Against this principle Jesus set 
the principle of his life. He taught that man 
could arrive at his highest destiny only through 
suffering, and in order to establish this proposi- 
tion and give it practical effect, he gave liis own 
life. He predicated the transfiguration of life 
on the transfiguration of the cross. By virtue of 
his sonship as a pure and sinless man, he had the 
right of way to God without hindrance or im- 



232 THE TRANSFIGURING OF THE CROSS. 

pediment; but he voluntarily took the way that 
sinful man must go, in order that this way might 
be open to all. But if a sinless man means one 
incapable of sinning and incapable of progress 
in spiritual life, then his course was of no value 
to us. That conception of him is ruled out, how- 
ever, both by the record of his experience, and 
the fact that he has satisfied the need of men. 
We accept without hesitation and as a full expla- 
nation of his consciousness the implications in- 
volved in the declarations of Paul that " he was 
born under the law, and of the seed of David, 
according to the flesh." 

Being thus born he "learned obedience," not 
in any unreal way, not in any way of inevitable 
and invincible necessity, but by a free choosing to 
do always his Father's will as it was made known 
to him from day to day, and by thus making a 
true advance " in favor with God " this lesson of 
obedience was thoroughly learned and completed 
without the need of review in the self-surrender 
of his life upon the cross. 

The cross therefore was not the one act of 
obedience, nor indeed the chief act of obedience, 
which made him the well beloved in whom God 
was well pleased, but it was the crowning act of 
a series which had lasted all his life long, and in 
every one of which the principle of self-sacrifice 



THE CROSS IN TRANSFIGURATION. 233 



and self-realization were alike included. This 
perfect and indefectible obedience is the evidence 
of his absolute oneness with God his Father. 
But while this establishes his relation to God, it 
does not show his relation to man. For that we 
have to look elsewhere, as we think, and yet, 
strange to say, we find it right here. 

In that remarkable prayer which is recorded 
alone in the Fourth Gospel, and which certainly 
contains a true reflection of Jesus' thought, even 
if it is not a verbal report, we read, " For their 
sakes," that is, for their advantage, " I sanctify 
myself." This sanctification as is evident from 
the form of the expression is not one solitary act, 
but a continued act or well established habit. 
Jesus had all along been consecrating himself, 
but he now repeats the declaration in view of 
his approaching death, since the idea of dying is 
undoubtedly involved in the meaning of sanctify. 
The special point to be noticed is the effect 
which he says this sanctifying will produce. We 
might naturally expect that he would say that he 
would put redemption, or salvation, in apposition 
with " for their sakes ; " but no, it is that ^' they 
may be sanctified in the truth." Of course the 
word " sanctify " means the same in both parts of 
the expression. If Jesus does not mean that he 
cleanses himself from guilt by sanctifying him- 



234 THE TRANSFIGURING OF THE CROSS. 



self, neither can he mean that his act of sanctify- 
ing will cleanse these disciples from guilt, to the 
end that they may come into the truth. But if 
he means that by sanctifying himself he completes 
his self-surrender in death, then in doing this for 
the sake of the disciples he expects that they who 
are already disciples will find in his death an in- 
spiration to a purer and more devoted life than 
they have yet attained unto. In other words, they 
will be induced by his example to so consecrate 
themselves to the truth, that for them the cross 
will in time have no terrors. 

He has assured them that they are already 
" clean every whit," but his death will complete 
the work which he as a teacher, has begun in 
them. How ? Because they will see that by his 
incomparable obedience he has himself become 
joerfect through suffering, and thus by showing 
them that his obedience was not an irresistible 
grace, but an act requiring a determined will as 
well as a loyal affection, they also may find in 
the sore disciplines of life the development of a 
power which may be brought more completely 
into the service of God, and so advance them to 
a higher degree in the divine likeness. 

The transfiguration of the cross, then, was 
worked out wholly in the sphere of human ex- 
perience. From the beginning to the end it is 



THE CROSS IX TEAXSFIGrEATIOX. 235 



the sufferiDg of a man that vre Tritiiess. His 
weariness, his tliirst. his loneliness, his disap- 
pointments, his sachiess at the imbelief of the 
Jews, his misery on account of their sins, liis 
bearing of their reYilings, and curses, and cause- 
less hate, his bitter trouljle of soul before Geth- 
semane, his passion in the garden, his heart-break 
over the betrayal, his hnmihation before Caiaphas 
and Pilate, and his long physical and mental 
agony on the cross, are all experiences Avhich 
came to him as a man. and in which he got no 
other help than that which any man may get, and 
which he bore with the same human inthmity 
which belongs to all men. though in his case it was 
without sin. Take away this fact, and you take 
away all that makes liis stifferings of any avail 
to US. Let tlie fact come out in its fulness, and 
bear in mind the purpose of the suffering, and 
you will get his interpretation of it, as a divine 
discipline, and because of the result, as a succes- 
sion of oppo]'tttnities for the realization of the 
glory that endureth forever. This, then, is the 
summing up of the reasons for the cross. It is 
the highest example of conformity to the divine 
will. It is the maximum of obedience. It is the 
highest possible affirmation that God's will is 
best, whatever may betide, and that this will is 
fundamentally, in spite of what may seem to the 



236 THE TRANSFIGURING OF THE CROSS. 



contrary, a will with infinite love back of it. 
Nothing but conformity to this loving will can 
bring peace or joy to our souls. Men sometimes 
say that the gospel of good news is the remission 
of the punishment of our sins. It is not that. 
The true gospel is that sin will be punished, 
and that no man can escape it. The desidera- 
tum then is not the removal of punishment but 
the removal of sin. But sin can be removed 
only through the " expulsive power of a new 
affection." Jesus awakens that affection, and 
gives it force by what he has done and suffered 
for our advantage. He proves the constancy of 
the divine love. In dying he manifests the ardor 
of his purpose to fulfil all the will of God. As 
in all his ministry he sets forth the compassion 
of God to the world, so even in death he con- 
tinues that ministry. He reveals to the world 
the fulness of God, because he is the Son of God, 
and because God is in him, speaks through him, 
acts by him, as the Word that became flesh. Not 
to be ministered unto, but to minister and give 
his life as a ransom for all the world, past, present , 
and to come, is the unchanging design for which 
he came into the world. He never loses sight of 
this object. He never surrenders his purpose, 
though he surrenders himself. On the cross he 
is confident that God will hear him as he prays 



THE CROSS IN TRANSFIGURATION. 237 



for the forgiyeness of those who know not what 
they do. There is faith that cannot be quenched. 
There, too, he still claims his crown rights as Im- 
mannel. With undiminished majesty and un- 
doubting authority he opens the kingdom of 
heaven to the penitent robber, and offers a place 
with him that very day. 

There also he remembers with tender compas- 
sion the sorrows of his mother, and offers her the 
best comfort earth can afford, and then he sinks 
beneath the pain of physical distress and spiritual 
desolation, only to rise into the arms of the Father 
who has never forsaken liim, and to assert the 
victory of Love in the final outgoing of his life. 
We will not belittle that death by calling it 
heroic ; it is too sublime for human praise ; it is 
too significant to be measured as one measures 
the death of a warrior or a martyr. It has ac- 
complished in full and for all the world what 
other deatlis have accomplished only in part and 
for a few. By it he was liimself perfected, and 
by it he opened the way to perfection for all who 
will follow in his footsteps. By it he testified to 
the validity of his divine commission as the cap- 
tain of our salvation, and became forevermore 
not only the Christ of consolation, but the Clirist 
of consummation. By it he finished the work of 
redemption, and completed the circle of reconcili- 



238 THE TRANSFIGURING OF THE CROSS. 



ation, in giving us an unobstructed access to the 
Father, and removing every excuse for continued 
rebellion in our sin-corrupted and obstinate wills. 
It is this that transfigures the cross and casts 
over it a sublime halo whose radiance shall never 
fade or grow dim. In the optimism of the ancient 
psalmist we behold the purpose for which man 
was created. Made lower than the angels he was 
crowned with glory and honor, and set over the 
works of the hands of God, all things being put 
in subjection under his feet. To the writer of 
the letter to the Hebrews this consummation has 
not been reached. Man has not attained unto 
perfect dominion. "But now," he says, "we see 
not yet all things subjected to him ; nevertheless 
we behold him who hath been made a little lower 
than the angels, even Jesus, because of the suffer- 
ing of death crowned with glory and honor, that 
by the grace (not the wrath of God) he should 
taste death for every man. For it was becoming 
in God, for whom are all things and through 
whom are all things, in bringing many sons unto 
glory, to make the author of their salvation per- 
fect through sufferings." Science directs us, and 
directs us truly, to consider the destiny of man 
in the light of his origin. Religion, as taught 
by Jesus, bids us consider no less earnestly the 
destiny of man fulfilled by Christ through suffer- 



THE CROSS IN TRANSFIGURATION. 239 

ing. Both these views are true. They blend in 
the light of the transfigured cross. 

Humanity, represented in Christ, fulfilled all 
the conditions of a perfect Divineness. To him, 
and him alone, can man look with any hope of 
success for the redemption from sin and the new 
birth which initiates the " stature of the finished 
man." The cross points the way 

" To wounded feet that shrink and bleed, 
But press and cHmb the narrow way, — 
The same old way our own must step, 
Forever, yesterday, today." 

And because it was the Son of Man who died 
on the cross we are sure 

" That soul can be what soul hath been 

And feet can tread where feet have trod. 
Enough, to know that once the clay 
Hath worn the features of the God." 



